I FEAR GODp 
1 IN YOUR I 
i OWN VILLAGE 



RICHARD MORSE 





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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT, 



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FEAR GOD IN YOUR 
OWN VILLAGE 



BY 

RICHARD MORSE 



s 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1918 



^2 



Copyright, 1918, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

Published March, 1918 



MAR 16 1918 



TMC QUINN A BOOEN 00. PRESS 
RAMWAY, N. 4. 



©CI.A494 1S8 
1^ I 



to 










^ 



TO MY WIFE 

whose sense of humor and breadth of vision 
have brightened many a discouraging day. 



PREFACE 

Here is the true story of an attempt to put 
the fear of God into an American rural com- 
munity ; that is, to bring order out of the chaos 
of its social and civic affairs, to put pride and 
co-operation in the place of suspicion and 
individualism, to make narrow prejudice and 
plain cussedness give way to sympathy and 
unselfish service. 

Perhaps it will do you good — but it wasn't 
written for that purpose. It was written 
largely to explain to my wife why I am so 
frequently late to meals and why I have not 
spent more evenings in her dear presence. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB PAGE 

I Deacon Bostick's Vote 1 

II Neighbor Freeman's Barn ... 19 

III Redeeming the Church . . . . 38 

IV Some Obstacles . . . . .64 
V More Obstacles 78 

VI Building the Neighborhood House . 90 

VII Socialism op Another Sort . . . 102 

VIII Operating the Neighborhood House . 121 

IX The Morals op the Movies . . . 134 

X Fires, Fire Department, and Fire 

Water 151 

XI A Village Industry 167 

XII An Epidemic 182 

XIII The Fear op God 198 

XIV War 209 



FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN 
VILLAGE 

CHAPTER I 
DEACON BOSTICK'S VOTE 

I do not recall when I met Deacon Bos- 
tick. It was probably after my first or 
second church service in Hilldale. But the 
first I heard about him was one day when 
Deacon Gordon, our school principal, told 
me that I had "just about won Deacon 
Bostick over." 

"Won him over?" I said. "To what, 
from what? " 

"Why, he is the only member of the 
Consistory holding out against you. When 
he gives in we will give you a call to the 
church and make it unanimous." 

" But I thought I was called and called 
unanimously before I came here," I 
protested. 



2 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

"No, we are just trying you out. All 
of us on the Consistory except Bostick are 
for you and so are most of the congregation, 
but some of the old timers like Bostick are 
hard to win over." 

"And you think I have been here simply 
candidating for this little church these last 
four weeks? " I demanded. 

" Of course." 

"Well, let me tell you something for the 
good of my soul," I said, considerably riled. 
"I am not candidating. I do not give a 
lonesome cuss whether Deacon Bostick or 
anybody else wants to vote for me or not. 
This church is not choosing or rejecting me. 
I am choosing it. I have come here to put 
the fear of God in it. I am going to stay, 
votes or no votes." 

Gordon looked at me a moment and then 
slapped me on the shoulder as he broke into 
a hearty laugh. " Good for you," he cried, 
then hesitated a moment and added, " but be 
sure the town doesn't put the fear of man 
in you." 



DEACON BOSTICK'S VOTE S 

Thereupon I went to my room at Uncle 
Josiah Nichols' and kicked myself. " There 
you go, you cocky young fool," I said. 
" This is a beautiful way to start your 
ministry, strutting around with a chip on 
your shoulder. Now get down on your 
knees by your bed and pray. Ask the 
Lord for forgiveness and a teachable spirit." 
But my knees would not bend and my lips 
refused to utter anything but imprecations 
against Deacon Bostick and all his ilk. 
What right had they to think that a min- 
ister should please them? I would have them 
know that I was no one-horse exhorter look- 
ing for a job and coming to them because 
I couldn't find a better one. I was a grad- 
uate of College, University, and Seminary. 
I had had a year's experience as a social 
survey investigator ("snooper," the farmers 
called it) over the United States and was 
coming to this little town with a wealth of 
theory inside of me and a wealth of experi- 
ence in front of me. 

I had come as pastor of the church and 



4 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

secretary of the Hilldale Neighborhood Asso- 
ciation. The church was almost dead; in 
fact, it was only walking around to save 
funeral expenses. The Association was a 
civic organization, non-sectarian, made up 
of business men, wealthy residents and a 
few village people. It was three years old. 
It had been born in the mud, so to speak, 
for it owed its origin to a group of men 
getting together with the purpose of mac- 
adamizing a very bad road. When that had 
been accomplished and they had lifted them- 
selves out of the mud they had not disbanded 
but worked on until they had secured a public 
library. Then they had tackled the mosquito 
problem and set to work on a large scale 
draining, flooding or oiling swamps or 
marshy places and eliminating mosquito 
breeding places. Almost before they knew 
it they had made their organization per- 
manent and called it their Neighborhood 
Association. 

But neither the church nor the association 
had been able to support a man on full time 



DEACON BOSTICK'S VOTE 5 

until, through the efforts of Mr. Townsend, 
the Association's president, they had united 
their forces and decided to secure one man 
in the dual capacity of resident minister and 
director of the Neighborhood Association. 
It had been exactly the sort of opening I 
had wanted — a combination of religious and 
social work in a rural community. 

I was going to see what could be done in 
one country town. In fact, I was about to 
set the world afire. What right had the 
kindling to say it wouldn't burn? It ought 
to be mighty proud to have a part in the 
conflagration. 

I argued all this for ten or fifteen minutes 
to the four walls of my room, and receiving 
no answer in reply I was convinced that I 
was right. As I was beginning to cool down 
there came a knock at the door and two 
young men of the village entered. They 
were George Biddle and James Stilwell. 
George was about thirty-three or thirty-four 
years of age, rather short, and partially bald. 
I learned later that he was a member of one 



6 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

of the oldest families, and that he was a 
real estate and insurance broker. James was 
a young carpenter of twenty-one or twenty- 
two years, with a clean face and quiet voice. 
George did most of the talking. 

"Would you help us start some sort of 
boys' club here?" he said, after a rather 
embarrassed beginning. " There ain't no 
place for us fellows to go except the saloons 
or to the other villages." 

"How many saloons are here?" 

" Seven." 

" That is seven too many. How large is 
the village? " 

" About a thousand." 

"Any clubs among the young people 
now? " 

" Only what is left of the Sterling Athletic 
Club. It is made up of a dozen fellows. 
They meet in an old shoemaker's shanty 
down near the station; don't do anything and 
are just about played out. Then there is 
a volunteer fire department that meets over 
here in the shed near the school-house. 



DEACON BOSTICK'S VOTE 7 

There are about forty members in that, but 
they don't do much either." 

" Suppose you give me a few days to look 
over the situation and think out a plan. 
Meantime will you prepare a list of all the 
young men in town and then in about ten 
days call a mass meeting of these fellows at 
the fire department shed? I will be there and 
we will start something — I don't know what." 

They agreed and took their departure. 
For the next few days I was too busy finding 
out what the town was made of to worry 
about Deacon Bostick or the Consistory 
votes. The more I found out the more I 
realized that there was a struggle coming 
if the fear of God was to be put into the 
town and the more I thought of Gordon's 
warning, "Be careful that the town doesn't 
put the fear of man in you." 

I didn't make a careful house-to-house 
social survey until months later. For the 
present I wanted just the outstanding facts 
about the recreations of the young people. 
The village was typical of hundreds of com- 



8 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

munities within a radius of thirty to fifty 
miles of any great American city, but there 
wasn't much consolation in that fact. Once 
it had been an agricultural neighborhood, but 
the spread of the neighboring city had in- 
creased land values from $150.00 to $1,500.00 
an acre in a dozen years. The old farmers 
had been selling their farms and moving 
away. Most of the land had been bought 
up and turned into great estates by wealthy 
business men from the city. A few of these 
I had met and they promised to be interest- 
ing. But these only made up about ten or 
twelve per cent, of the population which 
totaled, as George had said, a little less than 
one thousand. The rest were largely gar- 
deners, carpenters, masons, and laborers of 
various kinds. A few were commuters. Most 
of these were comparative newcomers, taking 
the place of the old farmers, who were either 
moving away or dying off. 

The village was pretty well divided into 
" old timers " and " newcomers." The old 
timers were unselfishly shoving the burdens 



DEACON BOSTICK'S VOTE 9 

of the community upon the shoulders of the 
newcomers, and the newcomers, graciously 
but firmly protesting that they would not 
think of superseding those who had worked 
so long and so well, were declining the com- 
munity responsibilities with great thanks. 
The plain fact was that both old timers and 
newcomers had the same aversion to work. 
Between them, the recreations of the young 
people, the church, the public school, the 
roads, and all the other social institutions had 
been sadly neglected. 

There were, as the boys had said, seven 
saloons in town, each with its pool room. 
There was no other place of amusement. 
Young people were starving for a good time. 
There was a deal of immorality. Three 
miles to the west was Dellwood, an over- 
grown, unincorporated hamlet of ten thou- 
sand or more, and to this town every evening 
from fifty to seventy-five persons, young and 
old, were going by railway train to movie 
show, dance hall, or street. 

What was Deacon Bostick's vote to be 



10 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

compared to trying to help remedy a situa- 
tion like this? The Deacon, I decided, could 
go hang, or, if he preferred, he could fall 
head-first into his cistern and take his vote 
with him. I was going to get some clean 
recreations for this village. 

I managed to get myself invited to a 
meeting of the Sterling Athletic Club down 
in the old shoemaker's shanty. Rough look- 
ing old place it was, about eight feet wide 
and ten feet long, with board walls, no carpet 
on the floor, an oil lamp, a few chairs, a 
bench, a table, and a three-legged stove. 
Half a dozen young fellows were there. 
Fred Black, a young contractor and builder, 
James Stilwell, Ed Skenlan and his father, 
Tom Skenlan, and two or three others. 
Most of them were either carpenters or 
masons. We played cards and swapped 
yarns that first evening, and the boys told 
me a little of the history of their club, how 
it had been started by a politician named 
Sterling, how it had had a golden age when 
its prowess in baseball and other athletics 



DEACON BOSTICK'S VOTE 11 

had been the envy of all the country 
around, how local rivalries and friction had 
started over hotly contested games and um- 
pires' decisions, how there had been no one 
to patch up the difficulties, and how when 
the opposition had been finally vanquished 
and there was no outside enemy to challenge 
they waxed fat and kicked each other until 
their organization had but a handful left 
and pinochle was their most violent exercise. 
Two or three nights later I spent another 
evening in the shanty, and on the second 
or third evening after that I was made a 
member of the club. Then one rainy evening 
as we sat around the card table I told the 
boys I had a plan to propose. I proposed 
that with this club and the fire department 
as a nucleus we get together all the young 
fellows in town and furnish the whole village 
with plenty of clean recreation. It was a 
young man's job. Why should we wait for 
some one else to do it for us? I proposed 
that we do it ourselves by the following 
method: 



12 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

Get up a petition to our Neighborhood 
Association asking them, first, to take us 
into their association as active members 
upon payment of our regular dues of $1.00 
a year; second, to commission us as a recre- 
ation department to furnish the whole village, 
old and young — our fathers and mothers and 
smaller brothers and sisters included — with 
plenty of clean recreation; and third, if we 
were successful after two years' work, to help 
us build in our village a neighborhood house 
including a good motion picture show, a 
social room, bowling alleys, pool table, vil- 
lage library, and a room for the village fire 
department. 

We talked over that proposal for two 
hours that night. I think it was one of the 
most religious meetings I was ever in. Yes, 
the air was blue with smoke, the table was 
covered with cards, and the fellows lounged 
around in all sorts of comfortable positions. 
But here were a dozen young men seriously 
considering taking up an unselfish work for 
the good of the town, for the spiritual wel- 



DEACON BOSTICK'S VOTE 13 v 

fare of the town, if you please. If that 
isn't religious, what is? 

It took two or three meetings to thrash out 
details and make sure of just what we 
wanted. But finally every one of the mem- 
bers of the club signed the petition and then 
we called our mass meeting at the fire de- 
partment shed. It will be long before I 
forget that meeting. The fire truck had 
been hauled out so as to make room for the 
thirty-five or forty fellows who had come to 
see what was up. They sat around the edges 
of the room on camp chairs, benches, boxes, 
or anything else that offered a seat. Every- 
body was talking before I entered, but the 
moment I came inside the door a funereal 
hush fell upon the group that lasted, in spite 
of all attempts to break it, until I had taken 
my departure. I called the^neeting to order 
and made some sort of speech. I tried to 
introduce a little humor at the beginning of 
it but it fell flat, so I abandoned the attempt 
and went on to outline the same plan I had 
proposed to the Sterling Athletic Club. Con- 



14. FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

eluding I said, " Here is a plan. Now what 
do you want to do with it? " 

Not a word. A minute or two passed. 

"Any questions to ask?" Nary a ques- 
tion. Two or three more minutes passed. 

"Any objections to offer?" Nary an 
objection. More minutes. 

"Doesn't any one in this house have the 
power of speech? " 

No one had. 

" All right," I said, " think about this busi- 
ness for a week. Then we will meet here 
again one week from tonight and either put 
this plan over or bury it." I went to the 
door and turned to face the crowd once more, 
" Good night," I said. 

Then in one voice every one answered, 
" Good night." 

As I walked home I wondered at the 
meaning of their silence and of that last 
vociferous " good night." Was it the silence 
of disapproval, of bashfulness, or the fear to 
speak out before the crowd? I made up my 
mind that it was the latter. This town had 



DEACON BOSTICK'S VOTE 15 

been so long without an organization or a 
leader that its young men had forgotten or 
never learned the American tradition of free 
discussion in public meetings. And some- 
how, as their " good night " rang in my ears, 
it seemed that there was in it the over tone 
of promise — even of wistfulness. 

Anyway I wished I had that crowd of 
young fellows in church. That night as I 
lay listening to the chirping of the crickets 
I thought again of Deacon Bostick's per- 
nicious vote and of Gordon's warning, " Be 
sure the town doesn't put the fear of man 
in you." 

The following week the recreation depart- 
ment scheme was the talk of the town. The 
Sterling Athletic Club and the fire depart- 
ment became suddenly animated and held 
many meetings, called delinquent members 
to account, and collected much back dues. 
On Friday night we had another mass meet- 
ing and this time the silence was broken. 
Everybody broke it, sometimes all at once. 
Would we have a club house and where 



16 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

would it be? The East End boys (who 
lived on the east side of the community) 
insisted it must not be on the west side, 
and the Station boys (who lived near the 
railroad station on the west side of the com- 
munity) insisted that it must not be on the 
east side. A few thought it would be best 
not to separate themselves from the $1.00 
membership fee until the club was actually 
established. There was some little jealousy, 
too, that this scheme had been presented to 
the Sterling Athletic Club previous to the 
others. Did this mean that the Sterling 
Athletic Club boys were going to run the 
organization. 

Underneath all this one thing was evident 
— everybody wanted the club and was tak- 
ing it for granted. So the petition to the 
Neighborhood Association was presented and 
everybody signed it, making about forty-five 
signatures in all. One of the boys asked to 
be allowed to take the petition to a few 
fellows who had not been able to attend the 
meeting. He returned it Saturday with 



DEACON BOSTICK'S VOTE 17 

eight more names, making fifty-three in all. 

On Sunday morning we devoted our 
church service to the need of clean recre- 
ation for our village. The service had been 
announced by post cards sent to every Prot- 
estant family as far as we had their names. 
The church that morning saw many faces 
for the first time in a dozen years. I read 
the petition and used it as a text for my 
sermon. There was no oratory and less 
rhetoric in that sermon. It was simply a 
rather crude expression of what everybody 
wanted. It wound up with an appeal to 
the members of the congregation to give their 
support to the organization the fellows were 
proposing, and help it along in every way 
they could. 

After the benediction I hurried back to 
the door and shook hands with the congre- 
gation. When all were out save a few, one 
rather elderly gentleman, of medium height, 
a bald head fringed with gray, and dark 
eyes that batted, slapped me on the shoulder. 
" Dominie," he said, " that is the best service 



18 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

we ever had in this church. I tell you it was 
great. We hain't never had anything like it. 
I want to tell you I'm converted and I'm 
voting for you." 

I said something about that being very 
nice, and I hoped he would help the boys all 
he could. He said that he would and went 
away. : ' Who was that gentleman? " I asked 
Mr. Gordon, who stood near. 

" That old fellow you were just talking 
with? Why, that was Deacon Bostick." 

I walked back to Josiah Nichols' house, 
pronouncing to the autumn leaves by the 
roadside much wisdom on the subject of 
country people and the country church. All 
one needed to do was to be practical and 
not lazy, and the Deacon Bosticks would 
all be converted and give up their narrow- 
mindedness. It was really very easy. But 
I had not yet lived with Deacon Bostick 
through the affair of the pump handle or 
the affair of the two chairs in the back of 
the church. 



CHAPTER II 
NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 

The Directors granted the petition, of 
course, and received the signers as active 
members of the Neighborhood Association. 
They went further and turned the $53.00 
annual membership dues back to these new 
members in the form of an appropriation 
for the use of the Recreation Departmento 
This was quite a blow to those who thought 
the whole scheme was an attempt on the part 
of the rich to fleece the poor. Just how they 
had figured that the rich were going to divide 
up this $53.00 so that none of them would 
receive too large a share of the boodle was 
something of a mystery. However, they soon 
recovered from the blow and began to ask 
questions. " Where are you going to begin? " 
" How much recreation can you give a village 
with only $53.00?" "It will be two years 

19 



20 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

before a Neighborhood House can be built. 
Meantime, where are you going to meet? 
There is no building in the neighborhood that 
can be used as a club house." That simply- 
meant that there was no building upon whose 
front the words, " club house," appeared in 
large capital letters. 

I suppose every village contains an element 
of this sort — men and women who feed on 
suspicion and breathe discouragement. They 
are a dead weight in the community, for they 
drag their feet whenever some one tries to 
put the wheels of progress under the town. 
Their favorite maxim is, " It can't be done." 
Their greatest pride is the deadness of their 
village. They boast about it. Wonderful 
things, they admit, have been done in other 
towns but not in this place. " This is the 
most peculiar spot on the earth." Some time 
ago a retired farmer in one of these villages 
heard that there was going to be an eclipse 
of the moon. He hitched up his team and 
drove to a neighboring town to see it. 

But the enthusiasm of the young men was 



NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 21 v 

too warm to be cooled by this element. A 
suitable place for a temporary club house was 
a poser. But some one suggested that Neigh- 
bor Freeman had a barn near the center of 
the village which might be used for this pur- 
pose. Neighbor Freeman was quite willing 
to rent the barn for a nominal sum for club 
house purposes. It was just an old red barn, 
a road and a swamp in front of it, and a 
field behind it. 

We needed a floor. The young men who 
were carpenters agreed that they would give 
their labor in putting one in if we could 
afford the material. We asked the local 
lumber dealer if he would let us have the 
material and trust the Lord for payment. 
He said he would. Then for a couple of 
weeks the fellows were busy nearly every 
night working by the light of lamps and 
lanterns putting in a dance floor, a movable 
partition, a chimney, and wiring the place 
for electric lights. When they had finished 
they still had just a barn — clean and white 
to be sure and with a dance floor — but with 



22 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

no equipment, no games, no stove, no furni- 
ture, no anything, in short, but just a plain, 
bare barn. 

At this juncture some one suggested that 
there were a lot of attics in our town where 
women stored the furniture that they got 
when they were married and many other 
household articles since. There might be 
enough equipment in these attics about the 
town to fit up a club room. It seemed worth 
trying, so we had printed and sent to every 
family in the neighborhood a notice listing 
a number of articles that could be used in a 
club room. "We want no citizen to feel," 
the notice read, " that he is under any obliga- 
tion to inconvenience himself in any way and 
hope that none will sacrifice himself in his 
desire to show his good will to this Recreation 
Department. But if these articles, however 
battered or old, can be contributed to the 
temporary quarters they will be well cared 
for and well used, and we shall be very 
grateful." 

The replies to that notice were interesting. 



NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 23 

One man could only give a cuspidor. An- 
other could give a second-hand pool table. 
Between those extremes we found, when the 
answers to this notice were all in, that we 
had the following equipment: 

1 stove, 

2 chandeliers, 

2 phonographs, 
1 chimney, 

1 indoor baseball set, 

1 pool table and pocket stops for same, 

5 leather chairs, 

Whiting for the walls, 

12 decks of cards, 

1 second-hand piano and pianola, 

1 cuspidor, 

3 sets checkers, 

5 sets dominoes, 
Boxing gloves, 
Half-dozen card tables, 
1 reading lamp, 

6 window shades, 

Seven dozen glasses and odds and ends of dishes., 

24 camp chairs, 

1 oil stove, 

15 yards of matting, 

1 water pitcher, 

5 folding chairs, 

Several subscriptions to magazines, 

$137.87 in cash. 



24 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

The barn was no longer bare. The 
Sterling Athletic Club turned over its entire 
equipment of nine chairs, twenty cups, a 
coffee boiler, an iron pail, and its treasury 
of $42.87 — " everything down to spare shirt," 
as one of the boys put it. 

Then we set to work. We organized our 
Executive Committee, made up of two of the 
Directors of the Neighborhood Association 
and five local business men. This Executive 
Committee appointed an Athletic Committee, 
a House Committee, and an Entertainment 
Committee. 

The Athletic Committee organized a base- 
ball team and two Boy Scout Troops. One 
of the Scout Troops died in infancy, but the 
other struggled along for a little while and 
then seemed to stand still. I happened to 
be Scout Master of this troop and was get- 
ting discouraged with the slow progress we 
were making. There were about fifteen boys 
in the troop and the limit of my ability 
seemed to have been reached when I had 
taught them how to tie five kinds of knots, 



NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 25 

repeat the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, 
and to salute with three fingers. A generous 
rich man had offered to buy uniforms for the 
boys, but I declined the offer on the ground 
that we ought to earn our own uniforms. I 
cannot say that this decision was altogether 
popular with the boys. A uniform at that 
time cost $4.80, which seemed to these 
youngsters an awful amount to squander on 
clothes. They would save up their nickels 
and pennies until they had about $2.00 on 
hand and then spend it on something use- 
ful like a circus, or peanuts, or a soda 
fountain. 

One day it occurred to me that if I could 
lower jthe limit perhaps one boy might get 
over and the other boys seeing his suit would 
be encouraged to work harder for their own. 
So I offered to pay for the hat for the first 
Scout who could save up enough money to 
buy the rest of his uniform. As the hat was 
worth $1.25, this made it necessary to save 
only $3.55. Two or three weeks after this 
announcement was made, one of the young 



26 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

Scouts, Robert Jackson, came breathlessly 
into my office. (I had opened a little 
office near the railroad station and had se- 
cured the services of a girl to handle clerical 
work.) Robert counted out on my desk 
$3.55, in nickels, dimes, and pennies and 
demanded to be measured at once for his 
uniform. I took his measurements, filled out 
the order, and sent it promptly to the Boy 
Scout Headquarters in the city. The fol- 
lowing morning Robert again appeared, 
wanting to know if his suit had arrived. 
He came in two or three more times that 
day. By dire catastrophe that order was 
held up in New York for about three weeks 
during which Robert came to the office not 
less than one thousand times. On the after- 
noons of the last week he met the express 
trains as they came in. It was rather 
pathetic to see him watching eagerly the 
2.45 express and then following the disap- 
pearing train down the track with eyes from 
which the hopefulness of youth had almost 
departed. One morning, however, by some 



NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 27 

chance the package arrived in my office about 
three minutes before Robert. He rushed in 
with his knife open, cut the string, and 
pulled out the uniform. Now I had in the 
office, as I have said, a girl as clerk — a 
modest, retiring little Methodist. But it 
took physical force to prevent Robert from 
stripping and putting on his uniform in her 
presence. He finally compromised, agreeing 
to put on the trousers in his own home. A 
few minutes later he was parading up and 
down the street with a glory that Solomon 
never dreamed of. During the following 
week I ordered six more uniforms. 

The House Committee began the adminis- 
tration of the club room with ideals as high 
as heaven and faith in human nature as beau- 
tiful as it was sweet. It proposed just 
two rules " no booze " and " no gambling." 
" Let the honor system take care of any 
other regulations, " said the House Commit- 
tee. I regret to say that we found these 
simple rules were not as effective as they 
should have been. A group of the younger 



28 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

members whose energy exceeded their respect 
for law or property soon began to turn things 
upside down in the club room. They fenced 
with the pool cues and played the piano with 
their toes. Some became adept in juggling 
chairs and others developed physical grace 
by practicing the Salome dance on the pool 
table. Of course, if these fellows could have 
been detected in the process they would have 
been expelled. Although we had a moral 
certainty concerning some of them they were 
usually able to prove an alibi. In the course 
of four or five months the club room began 
to look and smell like a pig pen. Then we 
found it necessary to employ a janitor to 
keep the place clean and to maintain disci- 
pline. The cleaning part was not difficult, 
but we were unable to find any human being 
big enough to maintain discipline among 
these younger and more irresponsible boys. 
So one by one they were dropped from the 
membership. Some of them later recog- 
nized the error of their ways and rejoined 
the club and became staunch members. 



NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 29 

Others cherish a grudge in their hearts to 
this day. 

If the whole truth is to be set down here 
it must be recorded also that the rule against 
liquor was not always kept. On ordinary 
occasions we were safe. But at dances a 
number of the young men had an idea that 
a village dance was not complete unless there 
was much drinking of whiskey just outside 
the door. On at least one occasion a quan- 
tity of liquor was donated for this purpose 
by one of the local saloons with the evident 
intention of breaking up the Department. 
On another occasion two of the members 
broke up a dance by insisting on their right 
to maintain their honor by making mince 
meat of each other's faces. These members 
later made a public apology and their hu- 
miliation was a lesson to the rest of the 
Department. 

The House Committee decided that a small 
charge for a pool game would be justifiable 
and would prevent some from monopolizing 
the table. A little box was tacked up near 



30 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

the pool table and over it a notice to the 
effect that two cents a cue would be charged 
for each game. Would the members please 
drop the pennies in this box? It is only fair 
to say that the majority of the members 
dropped their pennies per request. But it 
must also be set down that very few of the 
pennies ever reached the Department treas- 
ury. For a while they disappeared from the 
box, a few at a time. But finally some 
benevolent young crook took the box and all 
and saved us the trouble of rescinding the 
regulation. 

Experiences like these soon proved to us 
the need of law, of rules, and discipline. 
That part of the human race with which we 
were dealing was not yet ready for divine 
anarchy. A majority of the members might 
never need a law or a rule for their own 
conduct, but their safety and welfare had to 
be protected against the few who were law- 
less and prodigal. 

The Entertainment Committee took upon 
its shoulders the task of furnishing, every 



NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 31 

two weeks, an entertainment such as a dance, 
eucher, supper, or concert. They endeavored 
to pay the running expenses of the club room 
by these entertainments. The expenses ran 
from $40.00 to $45.00 a month, including 
rent, light, heat, and janitor's services. It 
was the custom at first for the Entertain- 
ment Committee to resign in a body at the 
close of each entertainment given. " Never 
again! " they cried as they viewed dirty dishes 
and disordered room on the morning after. 
Washing dishes and cleaning up in that old 
barn were not exactly joyful occupations. 
And when about half of the Committee failed 
to show up, as was usually the case, the other 
half had to do all the work. Hence the 
resignations. 

After a few months of these experiences 
the Executive Committee thought that it 
would be better to have the Entertainment 
Committee elected in a meeting of members 
instead of being appointed by the chair. It 
was thought that election to this office would 
be something of an honor and would carry 



32 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 
with it more responsibility. We found what 
larger and older organizations, even govern- 
ments of states and nations, have been find- 
ing, for several thousand years. The mem- 
bers elected popular men without regard to 
their executive ability. The first Entertain- 
ment Committee chairman that we elected 
conducted two or three public functions and 
then gave up and dropped out. 

The second man elected to the chairman- 
ship of this committee on the ground of his 
popularity introduced liquor at one or more 
of the entertainments and nearly ruined the 
Department. The third man seemed afraid 
to move lest he be criticized. He held his 
job for many weeks, but never gave more 
than one entertainment. 

By this time the House Committee had 
learned that not only were laws necessary in 
their little portion of human society, but that 
effective government was not a necessary 
result of popular government. Thereafter 
the Executive Committee chose the chair- 
man of the Entertainment Committee on a 



NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 33 

basis of ability and character rather than 
popularity. 

Such were some of our troubles in Neigh- 
bor Freeman's barn. This infant organiza- 
tion had all the diseases of infancy. Many a 
night we had to walk the floor with it and 
often we were ready to chuck it out the 
window. But it had a strong constitution 
and the breath of life did not depart from 
it. The world let it live because the world 
had need for it. An average of from twenty- 
two to twenty-five young men were meeting 
in that old barn nightly and they were learn- 
ing with all their mistakes the first lessons of 
co-operation, respect for law and for the 
rights of others, self-sacrifice when neces- 
sary, and perseverance through difficulties. 
Upon the wall they had nailed their reason 
for existence, " the purpose of this recre- 
ation DEPARTMENT IS TO FURNISH CLEAN 
RECREATION FOR THIS ENTIRE COMMUNITY,, 

old and young/' In spite of their diffi- 
culties they stuck to that purpose, Their 
mothers and fathers came to the dances, and 



34 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

brothers and sisters to the concerts and 
the " sings." Gradually, too, young fellows 
from neighboring villages began to come over 
on their motorcycles. " There isn't any such 
club as this in our town," they said. The 
membership began to grow. 

After Neighbor Freeman's barn had been 
open for about six months a band suddenly 
blew into existence. It must have started 
by spontaneous combustion. Two of the 
young fellows who had been coming from a 
neighboring village — Carl and Emil Mankel 
— were musicians. It was around them that 
the band started. Some seventeen or eight- 
een young fellows had saved a little out 
of their wages and now began to appear at 
the barn with cornets, trombones, drums, 
French horns, etc. The Mankel boys were 
not the product of any school, but they had a 
natural knack for teaching. They must have 
had, for inside of three months the Hill- 
dale band gave a concert at the little 
church and the audience nearly stamped the 
paint off the floor in its enthusiasm for what 



NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 35 

the boys had accomplished. Twelve weeks 
before hardly one of them had been able to 
tell a musical note from a fly speck. 

After their debut in the church this band 
began to serenade about the community. 
Sometimes they serenaded village homes, but 
more often the homes of the wealthy. The 
Captain of Industry might be resting from 
his day's labors on his veranda or he might 
be chatting with guests or in the midst of an 
important conference with other Captains of 
Industry in his study, when suddenly the 
crunch, crunch, crunch of marching feet on 
his gravel road would break in upon his 
meditations or his conference, and a few 
seconds later the rafters of his house would 
be ringing with the strains of " Tipper ary " 
or " My Country 'Tis of Thee." Not once 
did one of these wealthy neighbors close his 
doors or send out word that he was not at 
home or was busy. Every time they wel- 
comed the boys and invited them into their 
drawing rooms. In they would tramp, fif- 
teen or twenty strong, and followed by 



36 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

twenty-five or thirty hangers-on among the 
younger boys. Hostesses who would have 
received royalty without blinking an eye 
nearly had nervous prostration in trying to 
accord this band a proper reception. Cooks 
tore their hair trying to prepare, in twenty 
minutes, light refreshments for two score 
husky young fellows. The Captain of In- 
dustry himself made a speech of welcome 
which taxed his brain more than an after 
dinner speech at the Waldorf. And the 
band played on and on until the pictures 
shook upon the walls and the vases trembled 
upon the mantel. If refreshments did not 
come before the band had completed its pro- 
gram the program was repeated. Then the 
band played " Home Sweet Home " and 
marched down the gravel road again, while 
the perspiring Captain of Industry and his 
nerve-racked wife waved farewell from their 
veranda, and the cook prepared her " notice " 
in the kitchen. 

So it was that Neighbor Freeman's barn 
became not only a recreation center for this 



NEIGHBOR FREEMAN'S BARN 37 

village but reached out into the homes of 
rich and poor alike and touched them with 
a finger of friendship. As of old, when at 
the sound of Joshua's horn the walls of 
Jericho began to crumble, so now the bar- 
riers between rich and poor were shaken by 
the brass band that was born and reared in 
this old barn. The wealthy neighbors were 
touched by the hearty spirit of the boys and 
the boys in turn were stirred by the warmth 
of the welcome they received in the wealthy 
homes. 

The membership in the Recreation Depart- 
ment was no longer fifty-three. It was now 
one hundred and forty-eight. 



CHAPTER III 
REDEEMING THE CHURCH 

Putting the fear of God in a community 
was certainly a religious task, and one had a 
right to look to the church to take the lead 
in it. The business of the church is the sal- 
vation of the community — salvation not from 
hell fire in a world to come, but salvation 
from uselessness, from low ideals, and from 
selfishness. Somehow it must save the human 
energy of the community from going to 
waste. It must conserve in the minds and 
hearts of the people the things that are most 
worth while — that are true and beautiful and 
good. It must save its men and women and 
its boys and girls from wasting their sub- 
stance in self-indulgence and from burning 
up their spirits in suspicion and hatred and 
passion. In order to fulfil this mission the 
average country church in America must first 

38 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 39 

convert the neighborhood around it. It must 
get a new spirit into that neighborhood. To 
put in the place of narrowness a spirit of 
pride in the neighborhood, to put friendli- 
ness and co-operation in the place of suspicion 
and independence, to get newcomers and old 
timers alike to look upon the community as 
their own, belonging to them both, and as a 
place where it is good to live — this is to con- 
vert the neighborhood. Not until a com- 
munity has this atmosphere can the church, 
as an institution, do its best work in develop- 
ing Christian character and usefulness in 
individuals. 

But when we turn from the theory, and 
examine the " insides " of the average little 
country church we find discouraging prob- 
lems awaiting us. In this little church to 
which I had come as pastor there were 
twenty-two members, of whom only fifteen 
still lived in the community. The church 
had been organized about fifty years before, 
by a split from the Methodist Church only 
a stone's throw away. Before the Metho- 



40 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

dist congregation split, a new cabinet organ 
had been purchased. The Dutch Reformers 
having contributed toward this cabinet organ 
thought that it ought to split with them. So 
they had carried it, under the cover of dark- 
ness, into the new Reformed Church. The 
Methodists, however, believed that the organ 
could make better music before the Almighty 
if it played only out of Methodist hymn 
books. So a party of bold Methodists took 
it through the window one night back into 
their own church. A larger party of Re- 
formers backed up their faith with works 
and reclaimed the organ a few nights later. 
Every little while the organ was given an 
airing between the two churches, usually on 
a moonless night. The matter finally ended 
in the courts and the body of the organ was 
given to the Reformers. But its soul had 
long since departed, having been unable to 
stand the conflicting strains to which it was 
subjected. 

Then, too, there had been village choirs 
with the usual village feeling about them. 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 41 

There was a tradition to the effect that at 
one time a sonorous bass had graced the 
choir until a fateful Easter Sunday when 
he came to grief. According to the tradition 
he had been singing a solo part in an Easter 
anthem. In the effort to make audible a 
very low note his Adam's apple had sud- 
denly shot around under one ear, and the 
whole choir had to adjourn to the outside of 
the church to work it back into place before 
the anthem could proceed. This incident 
was not treated as sympathetically as it 
should have been by the congregation and 
some ill feeling developed. 

Memories and traditions of this sort cov- 
ered the little church as the waters cover 
the sea. Moreover, its old members had 
been selling their farms and moving away, 
and its membership was dwindling year by 
year. Moral and spiritual as well as eco- 
nomic conditions in the community were 
changing rapidly, but the little church went 
steadily on with an unchanged program. 
And its program was simply a weekly meet- 



42 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

ing and a weekly Sunday School, the same 
program that it offered fifty years before 
when conditions and needs were altogether 
different. For more than twelve years it 
had not had a resident pastor. A pulpit 
" supply," who was an excellent preacher, 
had come out from the city on Sundays. 
He had preached a good sermon and re- 
turned to the city on the same day. The 
great majority of Protestants had forgotten 
the habit of going to church. If one had 
asked a member what the church was for it 
is doubtful if he would have been answered 
in terms of community service. The church 
was simply looked upon as a place for wed- 
dings, funerals, and preaching services, and it 
is more than likely that some would have 
regarded it as the pious plaything of a village 
clique. 

Could a little church in such condition and 
with such a history be redeemed for useful- 
ness in the community? Could new life be 
put into it so that it would take its leader- 
ship in working out the salvation of this 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 43 

country district? Could this little church 
bind together in sympathy and co-operation 
both old timers and newcomers and all the 
divergent elements in the population, no 
matter how widely separated they might be 
in blood, customs, and wealth? Could it 
make itself a melting-pot of social differ- 
ences? Could it overcome the barriers be- 
tween men — the barriers that made them 
forget that they were brothers? Could so 
small a church take upon itself the most 
important task in the community, that of 
bringing spiritual order out of the spiritual 
muddle? Could it save the community from 
uselessness, low ideals, and self indulgence? 
It seemed worth trying. 

The thing that needed to be done first 
seemed to be to define our purpose in the 
church and to map out a program for the 
church's service to the community. Then 
the church must lose itself in its service to 
the community and trust the Lord for its 
own existence. If we were ever to have a 
live church it seemed to us it would be be- 



44 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

cause we had a live community. The 
church's first task was to forget itself in the 
redemption of the community. We would 
put to a practical test the doctrine, " He 
that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." 

We took as our purpose the resolution 
To Make This Community the Cleanest, 
Happiest, and Most Democratic Community 
in the State. Some of us wanted to say 
"in the World 3 ' instead of "in the State" 
Others thought it would be more sensible to 
say " in the Township" So we compromised 
on " in the State" 

It seemed essential to put our church mem- 
bership on a basis of purpose rather than 
creed. If we were to try to unite men and 
women of various creeds and denominational 
traditions we had no right to ask them to 
sacrifice their individual opinions on theologi- 
cal matters. We all wanted to work for the 
same end, and surely we ought to be able to 
frame a statement of purpose which would 
bind us all in a working organization, no 
matter how much we differed in theology. 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 45 

So we framed and adopted, by a unani- 
mous vote of the Consistory, the following 
statement of purpose, which would be ac- 
cepted as the basis of membership for the 
church : 

PURPOSE 

I BELIEVE THAT TRUE RELIGION IS A MATTER 
OF PURPOSE. 

I BELIEVE THAT THE PURPOSE OF JESUS WAS 
TO BRING IN WHAT HE CALLED THE KING- 
DOM OF GOD, THE TIME WHEN ALL MEN 
SHALL LIVE TOGETHER AS BROTHERS IN JUS- 
TICE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, LOVE, AND UNSELFISH 
SERVICE. 

I BELIEVE THAT THE OBJECT OF THE CHRIS- 
TIAN CHURCH IN GENERAL IS TO FURTHER 
THIS PURPOSE IN THE WORLD AND THE 
OBJECT OF THE REFORMED CHURCH OF HILL- 
DALE IS TO FURTHER THIS PURPOSE IN THIS 
COMMUNITY AND THIS STATE IN EVERY 
POSSIBLE WAY. 

CLAIMING THIS PURPOSE AS MY OWN, I WANT 
TO JOIN THE ORGANIZATION THAT IN THE 
AGES PAST HAS FOUGHT, AND IS STILL FIGHT- 
ING, FOR THIS END. 



46 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

This statement was printed on a card with 
a space at the bottom for signature. 

We agreed further to receive into our 
organization as Associate Members those who 
were already affiliated with other churches, 
no matter of what denomination, but who, 
living here several months of the year and 
being of common purpose with us, desired to 
have some sort of organic connection with 
our work. 

I have said that this statement of purpose 
was adopted by a unanimous vote of the 
Consistory, but let not the gentle reader 
think that the vote was made unanimous 
without a struggle. The Consistory met in 
my little office near the railroad station on 
a stormy afternoon in late fall. Besides 
Deacon Bostick and Deacon Gordon there 
were Elders Hatfield and Nichols. Elder 
Hatfield was an old gentleman, of about 
seventy-five years, with a long gray beard 
and eyes that over-flowed. He was a pious 
old man. He could barely read and write, 
but he owned a number of small properties 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 47 

not in the best of condition, the rental from 
which, along with the savings of a lifetime, 
made him fairly comfortable. 

Elder Nichols I should have told you 
about sooner. By his own admission he 
was the most powerful man in the church. 
In fact, when I first talked with him he 
assured me that when I was talking with 
him I was talking with the church. " I am 
the church," he said in Louis XIV style. 
And it must be said that he was about right. 
For Elder Nichols' word was usually ac- 
cepted as law in the church. He was treas- 
urer, clerk, and President of the Consistory, 
as well as the church's representative at all 
conventions. 

In his younger days he had conducted a 
pool room and soda fountain. Later he and 
his good wife had run a boarding house for 
summer boarders. He was now about sev- 
enty-two years old, had quite a little prop- 
erty, and was retired from active business. 
He was a great fisherman. In spite of his 
dictatorial ways there was a certain lovable- 



48 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

ness about him. He had taken me three or 
four times on fishing trips and although he 
caught twenty fish to my one, I enjoyed the 
trips hugely and came to have a genuine 
affection for the old man. It was rather 
difficult to steer clear of theological discus- 
sion with him, for he regarded himself as a 
defender of the faith. 

Inasmuch as I boarded with the old man 
I was kept on the alert to find subjects to 
talk about that would not involve us in theo- 
logical discussion. Often his wife came to 
my rescue and the motherly soul took me 
under her wing and I believe would have 
scratched his eyes out had he ever said an 
evil word to me or against me. I was at 
a loss to understand old lady Nichols' ma- 
ternal solicitude for me, and when I asked 
her the cause of it one day she told me that 
she liked me because I was not " Goddy." 
Uncle Josiah was decidedly " Goddy." 

At the Consistory meeting it was Uncle 
Josiah who raised objection to the state- 
ment of purpose. His objection was that it 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 49 

did not include enough. He was strong for 
including sections concerning the virgin birth 
of Christ, parts of the Heidelberg catechism, 
and certain doctrines reputed to have orig- 
inated in Calvin. 

"But Elder," I protested, "we want to 
establish a strong church that shall do a big 
work in the community. Isn't it enough that 
we should ask these people to accept the pur- 
pose of Jesus and work with us for the ful- 
fillment of that purpose? " 

" They must be right in the doctrine too," 
he returned. 

"What doctrine?" I demanded. 

" The doctrines of the Reformed Church," 
he answered. 

" Isn't it enough that they be Christians? " 

" No," said Elder Nichols, " they must be 
Dutch Reformers." Here the argument 
stood. We pounded the desk, raised our 
voices, and got red in the face. But we 
were unable to convince each other. Finally 
Elder Nichols became accusative. 

' You are trying to make this church pop- 



50 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

ular," accused Elder Nichols. I admitted it. 
' You are trying to get everybody to come 
to church," he continued. I admitted that 
also. ' You send out post cards and adver- 
tisements of the church's services." It could 
not be denied. "We have a bell on that 
church that can be heard three miles; that is 
advertisement enough. The church is not 
for everybody. It is for the elect. We who 
have been working in that church for thirty- 
seven years don't intend to be shoved aside 
by newcomers. We are not going to depart 
from the faith just to get a few more people 
into the church. The policy of this church 
and the basis for its membership have been 
established for hundreds of years and you 
cannot come along now and change them in 
a few weeks." 

" That may be true, Elder," I replied, 
" but this is also true, that the policy which 
met the needs of a day that is past may not 
meet the needs of men and women of our 
day. You have pursued that policy for a 
long time, and as a result the church has 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 51 

been going down hill until there is but a 
handful left within it. I have come here 
to build up this church if I possibly can 
with God's help and the help of you men. 
I see that it is probably impossible for us 
to agree on certain doctrinal points. That 
is only natural. But if I am to build up 
the church I must do it by my own methods, 
and I must have a free hand. I must also 
have your co-operation. The methods which 
have been pursued in the past were the 
methods that met the needs of an older day. 
They do not meet the needs of the people 
now. The methods which I am proposing 
that we try are designed to meet the needs 
of this day. Are you willing to give them 
a fair trial, to give me a free hand in work- 
ing them out and to stand by me until they 
have had a fair trial? " 

Deacon Gordon came to the rescue. " The 
Dominie is right," he said. " This statement 
of purpose may not contain all the faith, but 
surely it contains enough for a foundation, 
and the foundation is broad enough for any 



52 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

denomination. Let's make the adventure. 
Give him and his ideas a trial. There is 
nothing to lose and everything to gain." 

Elder Nichols considered. At last as he 
buttoned up his coat, he said : " All right, but 
I am afraid you will get a lot of people into 
the church who are not of the elect." 

Since this was precisely what we wanted 
there was no need for further argument. 
Thus it was that the vote was made 
unanimous. 

A few weeks later we worked out a prac- 
tical program for community service and at 
our New Year's Day service we presented 
the program in the form of New Year's 
resolutions. They were printed on a large 
card. 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 53 

RESOLVED 

TO CO-OPERATE WITH MY NEIGHBORS THIS 
YEAR TO THE FOLLOWING ENDS: 

TO CONSTRUCT A LARGE BUILDING FOR SUCH 
COMMUNITY PURPOSES AS PUBLIC RECRE- 
ATION^ LIBRARY,, CONCERTS, LECTURE 
COURSES, GYMNASIUM, CLUB ROOMS, AND 
FIRE DEPARTMENT. 

TO PROPERLY MAINTAIN OUR ROADS. 

TO BRING PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS IN THIS 
VICINITY CLOSER TOGETHER IN SOME SORT OF 
CO-OPERATIVE ENTERPRISE. 

TO SECURE CHEAPER LIGHTS. 

TO IMPROVE THE APPEARANCE OF THE NEIGH- 
BORHOOD BY PROPER DISPOSAL OF RUBBISH, 
BY THE CONSTRUCTION OF SIDEWALKS, BY 
PLANTING, AND BY BEAUTIFYING ALL PROP- 
ERTIES IN WHICH I HAVE ANY INTEREST. 

TO AID THE SCHOOL BOARD AND THE PUBLIC 
SCHOOL TEACHERS IN EVERY PROGRESSIVE 
EFFORT. 

TO STICK TO THESE UNDERTAKINGS UNTIL 
THEY ARE ACCOMPLISHED, GIVING OF MY 
TIME AND MONEY AS I AM ABLE, AND DOING 
ALL FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD. 



54 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

We made a religious ceremony of signing 
these resolutions during the service. One 
man, as he signed it, said: "This isn't a set 
of resolutions, this is a note ! " which was 
true. These cards were then taken home 
and there was hardly a place of business in 
town which did not display conspicuously its 
set of resolutions signed by the firm's name 
or by the proprietor. 

Now, with a clear-cut practical purpose, 
with a scientific as well as a religious basis 
for membership, and with a specific and 
definite program to work upon, I felt the 
time had come to make a canvass for church 
members. 

I began the campaign. I met with the 
most touching tributes of friendship, but 
everybody seemed to shy from becoming con- 
nected with the church. The old prejudices 
and grudges were strong. The only mem- 
ories some seemed to have of the church were 
memories of quarrels. Others, conscious of 
strong tendencies to backslide, hesitated to 
make public declaration of their Christian 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 55 

purpose. Still others confessed that they 
had long since got out of the habit of going 
to church, and while they would attend oc- 
casionally they point blank refused to become 
members and take upon themselves any re- 
sponsibility for the church's work or success. 
But the great majority of those who refused 
gave a reason which surprised me and set me 
thinking: "I am not good enough," That 
was the refrain that old people and young 
seemed to have learned by heart so that they 
could give it as an answer to any question 
and to any plea. 

In a way it was hopeful, for it signified 
that no matter what the condition of the local 
church had become, it still stood in the minds 
of the people as an institution which de- 
manded righteousness of its members. The 
old quarrels, the disputes, the factional 
fights, had not been able to put down that 
feeling. 

Nevertheless, the Christian church is not 
for saints only. Its Master long since de- 
clared that He came into the world to seek 



56 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

and to save that which was lost. There 
ought to be room in the church for every 
sinner who wanted to be released from his 
sins or at least forget them long enough to 
work with his fellows in the service of his 
community. And there was much good work 
in this community which men could do even 
if they were not saints. 

Two ways to overcome this difficulty pre- 
sented themselves. One was to hold a series 
of revival services, securing the help of some 
evangelist, trained in the art of making 
people publicly renounce their sins. Such 
a man could doubtless be found and would 
come to the little church for a week or two 
and, with the aid of much advertisement and 
much playing upon heart strings and the 
emotions of men, bring sufficient pressure to 
bear upon them to make some of them come 
to the altar to renounce their sins and to seek 
a new lease of spiritual life. 

The other way that presented itself was 
more novel and seemed more adapted to the 
needs of the local situation. So I adopted 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 57 

it. I planned a Sinners' Service one Sunday 
in the church. For that service post cards 
were mailed to every family in the com- 
munity. The cards read like this: 



FOR SINNERS ONLY 

The services at the Reformed Church 
next Sunday will be for sinners only. 
Saints and righteous people are re- 
quested to please stay away. 



For once we had a church well rilled. None 
could stay away without setting himself up 
as a saint. No doubt many came also out 
of curiosity. Anyway they came, and that 
is what we wanted. To be sure there were a 
few whose sense of humor had been some- 
what impaired by stomach trouble or atro- 
phied by long disuse, who by personal 
protest on the street or by note or letter 
expressed their anger at having been picked 
out to be the recipients of such a post card. 



58 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

But if one hesitates to try an experiment 
because everybody does not have a sense of 
humor, one may as well give up the ghost 
without further effort in this vale of tears. 
The program for this service was very much 
like that of the regular Sunday service. 
When it came to the sermon I began some- 
thing like this: 

" In speaking to the sinners of this neigh- 
borhood this morning I am speaking to my 
comrades in the local chapter of the greatest 
fraternity in the world. The local chapter 
seems to be large and flourishing and from 
all outward appearance prosperous, happy, 
and rather good looking. The fraternity to 
which we belong is the greatest on earth be- 
cause it is the largest in numbers, widest 
in extent, oldest in tradition, wealthiest, 
most respectable, and at the same time the 
most democratic in membership. It num- 
bers countless millions, it stretches from pole 
to pole, and around the globe at every lati- 
tude. It dates back far beyond the begin- 
ning of history. Put the wealth of this 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 59 

fraternity of sinners beside the wealth of 
the fraternity of saints and the latter looks 
like a grain of sand on a shore that has no 
bounds. As for respectability, the most re- 
spectable people of every generation have 
belonged with us — kings and princes, blue 
bloods and peers of every race and every 
age. And as for democracy, the only line 
drawn among us seems to be the line of sex, 
the consensus of opinion being that we are 
prevailingly masculine. But with this ex- 
ception we are utterly democratic. There 
is no one so poor that he cannot belong to 
us and none so rich that he can buy his way 
out from among us if he would." 

I went on to say that the attitude of the 
church toward sinners was changing. In- 
stead of taking sinners by the throat and 
shaking them over hell fire, she was taking 
them by the hand and leading them into some 
form of human service. It was not because 
sin had become less hideous, but simply that 
the church had found out that the cure of 
sin was not the fear of hell but the forgetting 



60 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

of self. The average sinner does not need 
the church to take him by the throat and tell 
him that sin is hideous, that its wage is death. 
We have all found that out by experience. 
No one can frighten us with tales of torment 
hereafter. Sin carries its own hell with it. 
We have found it the most expensive pleas- 
ure we ever had. There was scarcely a pillow 
in town that had not buried the wasted tears 
of some one's remorse. There was not a 
heart from which had not arisen the prayer, 
" Lord be merciful to me, a fool! " 

Then I proposed that we try to forget our 
own sins and to forgive the sins of our neigh- 
bors and work together in the service of our 
community. Two tasks needed to be done. 
They might seem mundane, but were in 
reality of tremendous importance to the 
happiness of this village. The first of these 
tasks was to secure sidewalks for the pro- 
tection of children on their way to school. 
The increasing number of automobiles made 
the safety of the children along the roads 
more and more precarious. The second task 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 61 

was to secure a Neighborhood Building to 
house the recreations of the neighborhood. 
Freeman's barn was only temporary. I 
dwelt upon the need of this house and closed 
with an appeal to the effect that here were 
two tasks for the community, in the accom- 
plishment of which even unregenerate sinners 
might make themselves useful. 

When at the conclusion of the sermon I 
asked for a quiet raising of hands by those 
who would co-operate in accomplishing these 
two tasks, every one raised a hand. A few 
days later I again began the rounds in the 
quest of new members. I presented the pur- 
pose card to every man in the community 
whom I thought ought to be ready to sign 
it. I dared them to sign it. Finally it was 
Tom Saunders, a mason, who reached for the 
card one day in the presence of his family 
and said: "Here, by heaven, I will be the 
first to sign." The rest of his family fol- 
lowed his example, and in a few days thirty 
new names were added to the church roll. 
Then one day one of the young fellows of 



62 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

the community asked if we would reserve two 
pews for some rather bashful fellows who had 
not had much experience in church going. 
The pews were reserved, and on the follow- 
ing Sunday they were filled and on the next 
Sunday two more pews were occupied by 
these young men. 

About this time, too, or possibly a little 
before, Reverend Richard A. Blackford, 
pastor of the Methodist Church, closed its 
doors and asked its people to attend service 
in our church. He had another church at 
Centerville, a few miles away, and lived there. 
He was a broad-minded man and knew that 
there was no excuse for two Protestant 
churches side by side, trying to serve the 
same small community, especially now that 
one of the churches had a resident minister. 
In closing the doors of his church he set an 
example for Protestant ministers everywhere, 
one of the finest examples in the history of 
the country church in America. It meant a 
sacrifice to him because he had to disobey 
his Conference, which did not understand the 



REDEEMING THE CHURCH 63 

local situation and he had to sacrifice that 
portion of his salary which was coming from 
the church he closed. 

About this time also a few old timers of 
unquestioned piety left our church. To 
them it had ceased to be a home for God's 
elect. 

It would make a happier story if the record 
of the church could end here. Enthusiasm 
was at its height. But we had yet to 
weather the storms by which all earthly in- 
stitutions are tried. We had yet to find out 
whether this church or any church, conceived 
with the high purpose of unselfish service 
and binding its members together on the 
broad basis of Christian purpose, could 
stand the test of time in a rural American 
community. 



CHAPTER IV 
SOME OBSTACLES 

And now I began to understand the " fear 
of man " against which Gordon had warned 
me. Between the town as it was and the 
town as it ought to be there were many 
obstacles, most of them possessed of two 
legs. For the sake of convenience these 
obstacles may be divided into three classes: 
first, those having to do with evil social and 
economic environment; second, those having 
to do with degenerate blood; and third, the 
forms of human cussedness not included 
under one and two. 

No one who has tried to deal directly 
and first hand with social problems would 
think of treating either of these classes 
impersonally, that is, like blind, mechanical 
forces. Behind the evil, social and economic 
environment we find men and women who 

64 



SOME OBSTACLES 65 

make a living out of it and resist any 
change as a dog resists having his bone 
taken from him. Behind the bad effects 
of degenerate blood we find human beings 
producing that blood and preserving it 
through numerous offspring. 

The seven saloons which kept our little 
village thirsty have already been mentioned. 
For two hundred years and more the liquor 
traffic had flourished in this community and 
it was deeply rooted. It was accepted by 
many respectable citizens as a necessary 
factor in community life. One heard on 
every hand that the saloons had justified 
their existence, first, because they paid large 
sums into the public treasury, and second, 
because they were poor men's clubs. Doubt- 
less the first of these arguments was designed 
to appeal to business men, the second to the 
sentiment alists. Both of them I soon found 
to be spurious and hypocritical. 

These seven saloons were paying into the 
public treasury about $7,000.00 a year, but 
they were taking out of the public pocketbook 



66 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

in return for alcoholic beverages at least 
$50,000.00 a year. But they were taking 
more than money. By the testimony of 
doctor, nurse, employer, and school teacher, 
they were taking away human efficiency, 
lessening powers of resistance to sickness, 
weakening wills, and breeding paupers and 
criminals. I soon found myself asking the 
same questions that confront every patriotic 
citizen who thinks upon this question. " Does 
it pay to license a traffic which makes men 
less skilful, less steady, less reliable; which 
lessens endurance, lessens self-respect and the 
respect of others, lessens confidence, lessens 
credit, lessens the demand for food, clothing, 
shelter, and tools with which to work? Does 
it pay to license a traffic which breeds idiots, 
paupers, criminals, lunatics, and epileptics, 
and casts them upon society to be supported 
by decent, honest, industrious people? Does 
it pay to license a traffic which increases taxes 
by creating a necessity for jails, peniten- 
tiaries, asylums, hospitals, almshouses, or- 
phanages, reformatories, police and criminal 



SOME OBSTACLES 67 

courts? Does it pay to license a thing which 
is always and everywhere known to be the 
enemy of everything sacred to God and 
man? " I came to the conclusion that it did 
not pay. 

As for the saloon keeper's argument that 
he was the poor man's friend, I might have 
gone on believing this as I did while pur- 
suing academic studies under sentimental 
professors, had I not had to come in con- 
tact now with those who had been " be- 
friended." I had not been in the com- 
munity long until I was called to homes 
where destitution was reported. Almost 
without exception the destitution was the 
result of drunkenness. Within a mile of 
where I sit now as I write there are three 
mothers and thirteen children in dire want 
and dependent partly upon charity because 
of the drunkenness of husbands and fathers. 
They are heroic little mothers and proud. 
They are fighting, as I have seen few men 
fight, to maintain their self-respect, to clothe 
their children, and to keep the wolf from the 



68 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

door. They are not old women, but the 
bright happiness that was theirs when they 
married has faded into the gray twilight of 
poverty and unremitting toil and struggle 
almost hopeless. If the dreams of their 
youth are ever fulfilled it will only be in 
their children, and the saloon is waiting for 
these. 

Perhaps these are extreme cases. But in 
this little village there are literally scores of 
homes where money needed for household 
expenses goes to the " poor man's friend," 
who gives back nothing but the ashes of man- 
hood and will power and character. Within 
the past week I have buried one man pre- 
maturely old, of a good family and a prom- 
ising boyhood — who for the last ten years has 
been lost to usefulness and honor, even among 
those who loved him. He has been only a 
sot. One morning last week he was found 
dead in an old shack owned by a " poor man's 
friend," and erected to care for his " drunks." 
At the funeral only a brother and sister 
stood weeping at the grave. There was no 



SOME OBSTACLES 69 

one else to mourn him. The " poor man's 
friend " had finished with him. The pall- 
bearers who lowered his coffin into the grave 
were paid for their services. Within the 
same week I have sent coal to two families 
where drunkenness caused poverty; loaned 
money for household supplies to a man who 
is trying to get on his feet after being a 
drunkard for years; and received the fol- 
lowing paragraphs in a letter from a mil- 
lionaire in a neighboring village: 

" Frankly, I am one of the type who in the early 
days rebelled against prohibition, feeling that it inter- 
fered with my personal rights and privileges. This, of 
course, was a very narrow view to take of so important 
a question, but I never had given it consideration until 
talking with people and of people who could not con- 
trol their taste for liquor and particularly after the 
community work, with which I by accident became 
identified, thus obtaining a greater knowledge of the 
traffic and the burden it imposed upon the poorer 
classes, which resulted in a complete change in my 
mental view of this subject, that can be termed, under 
our present so-called civilization, nothing less than a 
blight on mankind. 

" The thing that has perhaps impressed me most 
seriously recently arose from the work of Mr. Judd in 



70 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

providing a Christmas for the children of our district 
who would otherwise have gone without any Christmas 
celebration. Two weeks before Christmas, on Sunday, 
Mr. Judd visited some thirty families, in twenty of 
which it was admitted the children would have no 
Christmas celebration or presents of any kind, and 
in each instance the head of the family was mani- 
festly under the influence of liquor." 

And this has been only an average week. 

Facts like these soon began to hit me in 
the face at every turn. It did not take long 
to lose whatever sentimental consideration I 
had for the " poor man's friend." Naturally 
enough I soon found the saloons opposing the 
work of the church, of the Recreation De- 
partment and the Neighborhood Association 
generally. Their opposition was not straight- 
forward but subtle and underhanded. Each 
saloon seemed to be a little center of discon- 
tent where opposition was fomented. From 
these centers went out the insidious charge 
that the church and Neighborhood Associa- 
tion were simply a scheme whereby the rich 
were trying to control the poor, in order to 
make the village a nice, quiet place in which 



SOME OBSTACLES 71 

to live. It began to be said in these centers 
also that I was simply the " stool pigeon " 
of the rich, reporting the misdeeds of the poor 
and catering to the every wish of wealthy 
parishioners. No man was ever bold enough 
to say any of these things to my face. But 
they were constantly reported to me as 
gossip. Often my blood boiled and my 
fingers itched to meet the liars face to face, 
but they all seemed to be "yellow," and I 
have never yet had the opportunity of put- 
ting my fist in their faces. At least once a 
saloon keeper sent liquor to a dance in our 
club room with the evident intention of 
damaging the club's reputation and use- 
fulness. 

Somehow we must put a stop to this 
business. The first big thing to do was to 
protect the community from the traffic and 
to save the coming generation from falling 
its victims. Daily the community was being 
drained of its manhood and its producing 
power. The saloons were openly defying the 
law, selling on Sunday, selling to minors, and 



72 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

permitting, or even encouraging, gambling. 
A few weeks after I came to town, two boys, 
under eighteen, were found dead drunk along 
the roadside. A little later a friend had 
bought for his son, a boy of about nineteen, 
a suit of clothes on Saturday and had paid 
him his weekly wage for helping in his 
father's shop. That night the boy went into 
the nearest saloon and when he staggered 
from it on Sunday morning, his money was 
gone, his suit ruined. He was sick in body 
and his parents were sick in soul. The traffic 
in this sort of thing must be rooted out. We 
would get up a wet and dry campaign and 
vote the saloons out of town. We might get 
licked the first time, but the campaign would 
have an educational effect, would make the 
saloons obey the law, and when we tried it 
again we would have a good chance of 
winning. 

Right here, however, we struck a snag. It 
was not possible to hold a wet and dry cam- 
paign in our village, not even if we incor- 
porated. The citizens of our great state were 



SOME OBSTACLES 73 

not enfranchised on the liquor question. 
There was no law on the statute books per- 
mitting us to vote aye, yes, or no on the 
saloons. Every state in the Union but three 
had passed advance temperance legislation 
during the last ten years — and ours was one 
of the three. 

Our only hope was to aid in such ways 
as we could the Anti-Saloon League in se- 
curing the proper laws (a work of years 
considering the character of the state legis- 
lature) and to keep the traffic in check by 
an aroused public sentiment. This was only 
a makeshift, but it was all we could do. 
When I found this out I felt as an engineer, 
who wanted to drain a swamp and turn it 
into productive land, would feel to find that 
all he could do was to oil the swamp to keep 
its evil effects at a minimum. 

So deep-rooted was the traffic, however, 
that even this mild program met with much 
opposition from the saloon element and little 
support even on the part of decent citizens 
who could be expected to be desirous of a 



74 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

clean community. It is with shame that I 
have to record that some of the members of 
my church Consistory objected to my fight- 
ing the saloons or speaking against the traf- 
fic. One deacon, a merchant, who first stood 
with me, suffered the loss of patronage of 
one of the saloon keepers and then tried to 
square himself with the saloon keeper and 
get back his trade! 

But the saloons were not the only evil force 
in our community. I had scarcely been in 
the community three months when it was 
reported that a disorderly house was being 
conducted in an old shack near the railroad 
station. Investigation proved the truth of 
this report. An old man, a drunkard and 
one who had, apparently, not shaved or 
washed for many years, was, with the help 
of his wife, running a house of prostitution, 
with their own daughters as inmates. The 
place was patronized only by the lowest class 
of colored men and foreigners and by a few 
old bums. But it was a festering sore. 
Twice we had it raided and both times 



SOME OBSTACLES 75 

the old man was sentenced to six months 
in the workhouse and his daughters, large, 
feeble-minded girls, sent to a detention 
home in the city. After the second jail sen- 
tence the old man decided that his personal 
liberties were being interfered with, that the 
town wasn't what it used to be, and moved 
away. One good deed he accomplished, how- 
ever, before he left. He passed a bogus 
check for $7.00 on one of our saloon keepers. 
For this act the justice of the peace confided 
to me that he wanted to pin a medal on the 
old rascal. 

Another obstacle of a far different char- 
acter than saloons or disorderly house, but no 
less difficult to overcome, was the shifting 
nature of our population. A careful social 
survey revealed these facts in this connec- 
tion: that one-half the total population had 
lived here less than ten years and nearly 
one-third had lived here less than five years. 
Nearly one-half of the population were 
renters employed in various capacities on 
large estates. The average length of resi- 



76 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

dence in the community for many of these 
was but two or three years. Families of this 
sort seemed to feel that they were strangers, 
and not knowing how long they would be in 
the community, they did not want to " break 
the ice " and form new associations. This 
attitude of mind probably explained why they 
were unable to hold a position for more than 
two or three years. Then there were the old 
timers, who still held their land and were 
holding it for high and yet higher prices. 
These felt that they would sell soon and move 
away and their interest in community affairs 
was at low ebb. Many of their farmer neigh- 
bors had already sold and gone, and it was 
only natural that these who were left should 
feel that their day was passed. Underneath 
all this lay the fact that the community was 
no longer a productive community. We pro- 
duced nothing for which the outside world 
cared to change its wealth. The chief sources 
of income were the estate owners who made 
their money in the city. It is as bad for a 
community to be unproductive as it is for an 



SOME OBSTACLES 77 

individual; for both it means a loss of self- 
respect. 

To solve the problem of the unproductive- 
ness of the community and its shifting popu- 
lation requires more brains than have yet been 
brought to bear upon the task. Experts 
from the State University and the agricul- 
tural department failed to make any progress 
in encouraging the use of idle land for 
poultry raising or truck gardening. " What's 
the use? We're making a living now," was 
the usual reply to such stimuli. That was 
true. Almost everybody was making a living, 
but we all could have been making a better 
living. Another reply from a simple-hearted 
woman expressed the feeling of many. " My 
husband can't do garden work — he perspires 
so!" 

But Neighbor Freeman's barn was destined 
to make a contribution to the economic life 
of the community as well as to its recreations 
— to ring with blows of hammers and hum 
with buzz of saws. Yes, and to be baptised 
in perspiration. 



CHAPTER V 
MORE OBSTACLES 

Some one has defined Eugenics as the 
science which enables us to blame our faults 
upon our ancestors. If this definition is 
correct the study is very much needed in the 
average rural American village. The effects 
of frequent inter-marriage among old families 
until practically every one is related, are far 
from wholesome. Professor Arnold Gesell, 
reporting the results of a eugenic survey of 
" A Village of a Thousand Souls," * says 
that his observations of the people of that 
particular village covered a period of thirty- 
three years. In his report he shows in a 
striking way how the sins of the fathers have 
been visited upon the children of the third 
and fourth generations. He draws a map 
showing the two hundred and twenty homes. 

* See American Magazine, October, 1913. 
78 



MORE OBSTACLES 79 

Out of two hundred and twenty houses, 
thirty-seven have been given the stamp of 
feeble-mindedness. That is, there were adult 
persons in those homes whose intelligence was 
less than that of a normal thirteen year old 
child. He says, " there is the grinning 
simpleton whom everybody jokes, the queer 
old woman who plays with a big rag doll, 
the child who has never learned to walk, 
the overgrown girl in school whom the other 
little children tease and who scratches and 
spits back, the man who plays an accordion, 
but cannot do much of anything else, the 
gray-haired woman who always wanders 
about the streets." The map shows thirty- 
six houses that bear the stamp of alcoholism 
and nearly every alcoholic was a father from 
whose loins children had sprung. Counting 
three cases of epilepsy, twenty-two of the 
homes bear the stamp of insanity. Not all 
of the insanity was permanent, but it was 
there, hiding in the family closets, skeletons 
ready to jump out and rattle their bones 
whenever the storms of worry and want blew 



80 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

open the doors. Fourteen homes are stamped 
with tuberculosis. There they stand today — 
two hundred and twenty homes in a pros- 
perous village, one hundred and nine of them 
bearing the curse of either feeble-mindedness, 
alcoholism, insanity, or tuberculosis. Is it 
any wonder that there are dull, anaemic chil- 
dren in the public school? That weak- 
mindedness, shiftlessness, and laziness seem 
bred in the bones of some of them? 

I do not know that Professor Gesell's 
village was an average village, but I am 
inclined to believe that his proportion would 
about hold true for the old American com- 
munities that have suffered too much inter- 
marriage and two hundred years of liquor 
traffic. That does not mean that the entire 
membership of the families had become de- 
generate. There were many, many homes 
where no excess had shattered the nerves and 
no disease tainted the blood, and out of these 
homes were coming young men and women, 
clear-eyed and vigorous, the mechanics, busi- 
ness men, doctors, lawyers, and ministers of 



MORE OBSTACLES 81 

tomorrow. And often in the homes that 
seemed most hopeless there was one child with 
normal faculties of body and mind fighting 
his way upward heroically against the fate 
that had all but foreordained him to be 
damned. 

Closely related to the obstacles due to the 
effects of degenerate blood are those which 
are due to pure cussedness. Under this head 
should be included the outcroppings of ignor- 
ance and stupidity, of clannishness, petty 
jealousies, and cliques. But they can be 
illustrated more easily than they can be de- 
fined or their causes diagnosed. 

One of the ugliest spots in the community 
was the local cemetery. The plot owners 
were not organized and the cemetery was 
not incorporated. The first step to beautify 
the place so that it would be worthy of the 
dead who lay buried there seemed to be to 
incorporate it and get a head to it. A sexton 
could then be employed and be held respon- 
sible for keeping the entire property in good 
order. After considerable work in finding 



88 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

the names and addresses of the plot owners 
(for they were scattered to the four winds of 
heaven) a meeting was finally called to dis- 
cuss incorporation. At this meeting Jake 
Bush, a patriarchal looking old fellow, arose 
and said: "I don't know what incorporation 
is, but I'm agin it." Another old gentleman 
from the brush volunteered the opinion that 
there were too many grasping corporations 
already in the world. A third insisted that 
this was another scheme by which the rich 
were trying to grab the cemetery. We had 
to adjourn that first meeting without a vote 
because of such stupid attitudes. 

Then there was the affair of the pump 
handle — an affair which nearly split our 
church. We had put in a new cistern in 
order to furnish water and fire protection for 
the church. When it was completed, Deacon 
Bostick raised the question in Consistory 
meeting whether or not the pump handle 
should be kept in the church or on the pump 
during the week. Upon being questioned, it 
developed that Deacon Bostick was very in- 



MORE OBSTACLES 83 

sistent upon having the pump handle left 
inside the church during the week, so that it 
could not be used by old Lige Tompkins, who 
cared for a few of the graves in the cemetery. 
Lige was a brother-in-law of the Deacon and 
eternal enmity was sworn between them. Up 
to the time the cistern was put in at the 
church, Lige had to carry water for the 
cemetery flowers from a neighboring house 
about two hundred yards away. The church 
cistern would have been much more con- 
venient for him. For that reason, the good 
Deacon Bostick was opposed to allowing the 
pump handle to remain on the pump during 
the week. The Deacon made such a fuss 
about this that he actually persuaded a few 
to stand with him. But we finally settled 
the matter in favor of leaving the pump 
handle on the pump for the use of any and 
all who wanted it. 

Human cussedness was not monopolized by 
the poor. The rich in our community were 
very human, and had their share of human 
vices as well as virtues. There were wealthy 



84 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

families who would not speak to each other. 
Others had their troubles with intemperate 
sons. Still others were not big enough to 
overcome the tendency, which wealth carries 
with it, to make men independent of their 
fellows, of their community, and of God. 
There were not a few who regarded church 
and community work as needed only by the 
poor. If this variety of wealth came to 
church at all, it was only to see how the 
thing was getting along. Perhaps the parson 
was not filling the church; if so, would it not 
be better to fire him and get a new one? The 
thought that they might need spiritual cleans- 
ing and inspiration never entered their heads. 
Neither did they imagine that they might 
learn something spiritually worth while from 
the ordinary carpenter or washerwoman or 
even from the sermon, no matter how poor 
it was. People of this sort were a constant 
thorn in the flesh to those of us who were 
genuinely interested in making our com- 
munity more of a human brotherhood. Ac- 
customed to speak with authority along the 



MORE OBSTACLES 85 

lines of their own business, they were unable 
to see that they were not fitted by training 
or experience to speak with authority upon 
social work, any more than they would have 
been upon surgical or biological work. But 
if such men were hard upon us they were 
worse upon themselves. For they shut them- 
selves out from human sympathy. 

The affair of the two chairs in the rear of 
the church also deserves a place in this 
chapter. Some time during that first winter, 
Ludwig Jackson, a local grocer and barber, 
had been elected Sunday School Superinten- 
dent. He was an energetic little man and 
immediately began to look around the church 
to see what he could improve. In the rear 
of the auditorium he saw two old chairs which 
did not add beauty to the room. So he 
promptly picked up the chairs and started 
to carry them to the little balcony which 
crossed the rear of the church. It was on 
a Sunday morning, just as the congregation 
had begun to assemble for the weekly preach- 
ing service. As Jackson passed the door 



86 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

with his chairs, into the church, from the 
vestibule, stepped Deacon Bostick and Mr. 
Grossman. Deacon Bostick promptly de- 
manded that the chairs be replaced. 

"Why so?" said Jackson. 

" You can't get me out of the church this 
way," replied the Deacon. 

" I don't want to get you out of the 
church," said Jackson. 

" Then take my chairs back." 

" But why ? You are no better than the 
rest of us. You can sit in the pews just like 
anybody else." 

Deacon Bostick became oratorical. 

" For thirty-three years Mr. Grossman and 
me have set in those two chairs and we ain't 
going to let an upstart like you take our 
rights away from us in this here church ! " 

Jackson, however, was not convinced and 
he marched on his way to the gallery with 
his chairs, whereupon Deacon Bostick and 
Mr. Grossman marched out of the church — 
Mr. Grossman never to return. 

Deacon Bostick was at that time doing the 



MORE OBSTACLES 87 

janitor work for my little office and when, 
during the week, he told me of the " out- 
rage," he insisted that it was a plot to get 
him out of the church. I tried to appease 
him, but he hugged his sorrow to his bosom 
and would not be comforted. Finally I 
asked him to give us one more chance and 
promised that his chairs would be in their 
old place for him on the following Sunday. 
I then spoke to Jackson, explaining how, for 
sentimental reasons as well as diplomatic, it 
might be well to leave the old chairs in their 
original place. Jackson agreed to this and I 
thought that the matter would be settled. 

The next Sunday, however, some musicians 
had come from the city and needed a couple 
of chairs in the choir loft. They sent the 
sexton for the fated chairs in the rear of the 
church and he was just in the act of taking 
them down the aisle when Deacon Bos tick 
appeared at the door. With the air of a 
martyr he gave the chairs a lingering look 
and turned and left the church. 

I cross my heart and hope to die that what 



88 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

follows is the strict truth and nothing but 
the truth. After a long session with Deacon 
Bostick during the following week I finally 
persuaded him that the second carrying away 
of the chairs was not another step in the deep 
laid plot to get him out of the church, but 
merely a coincidence. I solemnly bet him ten 
cents that if he would give us only one more 
trial the chairs would be found in their old 
corner and would be reserved religiously for 
him on the next Sunday. He agreed to this 
and we put up the stakes with my stenog- 
rapher. I then informed both the sexton 
and Jackson that the situation was critical, 
not to say tense, and would they please not 
molest the chairs any more? They both 
agreed. 

Now we had a children's choir which sang 
in the little gallery. It was growing in 
members. Miss Adams, the director, on the 
following Sunday found that she needed two 
chairs to seat two of her little choir girls. 
And as fate would have it, she was toting 
these two chairs away just as Deacon Bos- 



MORE OBSTACLES 89 

tick appeared. This was too much. With 
a deep guttural cry, Deacon Bostick turned 
upon his heel and left the church forever. 
At the close of the service Deacon Freeman 
found him walking around and around in a, 
neighboring field talking to himself and mak- 
ing violent gestures. He gave him the con- 
solations of religion and led him home. So 
deep was his grief, however, that he refused 
to accept the bet which he had so honestly 
won. 



CHAPTER VI 

BUILDING THE NEIGHBORHOOD 
HOUSE 

Thus far the reader may have cause to 
think that our landscape was covered largely 
with obstacles and the people of our village 
filled with degenerate blood and human 
cussedness. That is not true. I have tried 
to set down the obstacles just as we found 
them. They are with us yet, blocking our 
way, impeding our steps, and discouraging 
us as often as we permit ourselves to think 
of them. But they are the same obstacles 
that impede human progress everywhere. 
And, thank heaven, the good in our com- 
munity, as in most communities, was stronger 
than the bad. 

Even if these obstacles had constituted an 
immovable object, there was an irresistible 
force ready to tackle them. This irresistible 

90 



THE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE 91 

force was in the persons of forward looking 
citizens of our village — Mr. and Mrs. Town- 
send (the latter a woman of great power who 
reminded one variously of Juno, Audubon, 
and Julius Cassar), the Stuarts, the Boisens, 
the Fiskes, the Grants, the Freemans, the 
Saunderses, the Edwardses, the Richardses, 
the Jacksons, Dan Cushman, Fred Black, 
Andy Magruder, and a host of others too 
numerous to mention. 

Some of these were wealthy and some were 
poor, but they were all what Professor T. N. 
Carver calls " work bench philosophers " as 
distinguished from " pig trough philoso- 
phers," producers rather than parasites on 
the body politic. 

And let me say here — and I hope the pub- 
lishers will print it large — whatever of con- 
structive social work has been achieved in this 
village, has been the result of the combined 
efforts of these workers. It has been no one 
man's work, and certainly not mine. I have 
not played a Moses' part. I have been but 
one of the many who have tried to guide our 



92 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

common efforts into paths of efficiency and 
production rather than allow them to fall into 
decay through neglect. The record that fol- 
lows is not one of uplift, but of co-operation. 
We come now to the part of our story where 
we may see these " forward looking " citizens 
working together. 

After a year and a half in Neighbor Free- 
man's barn we decided the time had come to 
start the campaign for a Neighborhood House. 
The result drove all thought of obstacles out 
of our minds. The village blacksmith started 
the subscriptions with $25.00, which was no 
small amount for a man of his income. 
When we had completed the campaign we 
found that one hundred and ten families 
had subscribed $31,000.00, the subscriptions 
varying from $15.00 to $2,500.00. About 
$1,500.00 of this amount was in voluntary 
labor which was as good as cash. Nearly 
every citizen, who was a permanent resident, 
gave something. The most gave money, 
some gave labor, and some gave advice. 

A great architect, who had built some of 



THE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE 93 

the larger houses in the community, offered 
his services free of charge in planning the 
house. For the next four months hardly an 
evening went by but a small-sized riot was 
staged in discussing the plans for various 
parts of the building. When the architect 
had finally made the twenty-seventh revi- 
sion we were ready to let the work to a 
contractor. 

Thereupon Mr. Townsend, the President 
of the Neighborhood Association, suggested 
that it would be a blessing to be able to 
build a house without a contractor hanging 
around. He went on to say that the idea of 
making the house an expression of all the 
people could be worked out in the construc- 
tion of the building if some local man who 
had had building experience would volunteer 
his time as manager and the various me- 
chanics would form committees to see that 
their particular lines of work were properly 
carried out according to specifications. The 
carpenters were to form a carpentry com- 
mittee, the masons a masonry committee, the 



94 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

plumbers a plumbing committee, etc., etc. 
Each committee would oversee its particular 
work and the building would be made a 
lasting monument for better or worse to the 
building trades of our town. 

This idea was perfect nonsense. The only 
thing the building committee ever did unani- 
mously was to condemn it. But Mr. 
Townsend would not shut up. Every time 
we met he piped up with this socialistic 
scheme. Finally he became so obnoxious 
that the committee decided to give his plan 
serious consideration. Mr. Malcolm, the 
leading opponent, insisted that while the 
building could possibly be built in this way 
it would be much more expensive than to 
hire a contractor. Mr. Townsend insisted, 
on the contrary, that the building could be 
built more cheaply by this co-operative 
method. This was preposterous. Mr. Mal- 
colm moved that Mr. Townsend be convinced 
of his own folly by letting him take the re- 
sponsibility of building the building in his 
own fool way. He added to his motion a 



THE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE 95 

bet that if the building could be built in a 
co-operative method more cheaply than a 
contractor would build it, he, Mr. Malcolm, 
would give the entire Board of Directors a 
dinner such as they had never had before — 
"would fill them up, hollow legs and all." 
This motion was carried and it was up to 
Mr. Townsend. 

Well, he did it. The various committees 
were organized. A local manager, Fred 
Black, a good contractor and a Roman 
Catholic, volunteered his time and the work 
was begun. Daniel Cushman had agreed to 
excavate the cellar as his donation. There- 
upon we decided to make a cellar under the 
whole house, including the front porch. We 
had our troubles, of course, and only the 
strong pacifist sentiment in America at that 
time prevented us from resorting to arms and 
ammunition when we had disagreements over 
the size of windows, the color of walls and 
woodwork, the furniture, the light fixtures, 
etc. 

The building was a God-send to the com- 



96 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

munity that year. Work was scarce and the 
families of many carpenters would have been 
hard pressed, if not actually destitute, had 
not the building offered an opportunity for 
labor. Some of the men were glad to donate 
to the building fund a part of each day's 
wage as their contribution toward the con- 
struction of the Neighborhood House. 
Others gave five or ten days' labor out- 
right. A few gave two or three weeks and 
one workman donated over $100.00 in time. 
Nothing could have made the walls of our 
building more firm than this voluntary labor. 
Every workman seemed to feel that the 
building was partly his. The sweat of his 
brow was going into it. 

The spirit of the men was warm and 
friendly. A walking delegate of the labor 
union could not understand it and was de- 
cidedly suspicious. He made two or three 
visits with the evident intention of stirring up 
trouble over the voluntary labor plan and on 
the occasion of his last visit had fortified him- 
self with alcoholic stimulant. But even this 



THE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE 97 

availed him nothing. He was sent about his 
business with the assurance from the work- 
men themselves that they were not being 
oppressed or swindled. The spirit of the 
men was further evidenced by the fact that 
nineteen of the younger ones joined the 
church that winter and spring. 

At last the building was finished. When 
we came to add up our total expenses we 
found that we had exceeded a contractor's 
estimate on the building by about $800.00. 
We, therefore, stood to lose the dinner which 
Mr. Malcolm had promised in case we built 
the building by the co-operative method at 
a lower cost than the contractor's estimate. 
To be sure we had made many changes in 
the building since the plans had been drawn 
and the price of building materials had risen. 
Nevertheless we were losers. But now Mr. 
Malcolm had a word to say. He insisted 
that the building was much more valuable 
than it would have been had it been con- 
structed by a contractor. He said that the 
spirit which the workmen had pounded into 



98 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

the building was worth much more than the 
$800.00 loss in money. He insisted, there- 
fore, on giving the dinner — a dinner that 
would have filled us up, "hollow legs and 
all," even though we had possessed as many 
legs as a centipede. 

On the night of the house warming fully 
four hundred neighbors, rich and poor, young 
and old, crowded into the house and inspected 
it from cellar to garret. In the basement 
they found a large room for the fire depart- 
ment, another containing two bowling alleys, 
and smaller ones for fuel, storage, furnace, 
and lavatories. Few, if any, of the fellows 
knew how to bowl and as a result balls flew 
down the alleys like shots from a rapid-firing 
gun and the pin boys gave illustrations of 
how jumping- jacks ought to work when in 
good condition. On the main floor the visi- 
tors found a good-sized auditorium, seating 
about three hundred, a social room adjoining 
and separated by a movable partition. The 
auditorium had a dance floor and an excel- 
lent form of folding chair which was at once 



THE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE 99 

comfortable, safe, and good looking. In the 
social room there was a pool table, a sub- 
station of the library, and various small 
games. On this floor, too, was a small office 
for the Secretary. Across the front of the 
house was a large veranda, suitable for 
summer dancing. Through these rooms the 
neighbors trooped and on up to the second 
floor, where they inspected a small motion 
picture booth and the quarters of the Super- 
intendent and his wife. 

The inspection over, a program of speeches, 
music, and movies followed. The audience 
enjoyed the music, did no violence to the 
speakers, but awoke to keen enthusiasm when 
the movies began. Until the pictures were 
actually upon the screen there had been con- 
siderable doubt as to whether our town could 
have a real, " for sure " motion picture show. 
Now, however, the fears were dispelled and 
the audience stamped their feet and ap- 
plauded loudly at every opportunity. After 
the movies came the grand march and danc- 
ing. For the grand march, Mr. Fiske, a 



100 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

wealthy corporation lawyer and the acting 
President of the Association during an ab- 
sence of Mr. Townsend, offered his arm to 
Nellie Brown, the daughter of one of the 
village men. Grandly they stepped it off 
together and in their wake other rich and 
poor locked arms and marched around the 
auditorium, down the stairs, through the fire 
department, through the bowling alleys, up 
the stairs, and out on the veranda and back. 
Then the orchestra struck up a dance and 
until 2.00 o'clock in the morning we danced 
and sang and danced again. 

It had been an evening such as the village 
had never seen before. As I walked home 
that night and looked back at the lights that 
shone from the auditorium windows and 
heard the faint strains of the dance music 
I could not help but thank God for such a 
Neighborhood House and for the spirit of the 
men and women who had built it. Could 
we go on week after week and year after 
year, Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Epis- 
copalians, Presbyterians, Jews, meeting there 



THE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE 101 

in friendship, getting better acquainted, play- 
ing together, exchanging ideas on politics, 
religion or what-not, without degenerating 
into a small clique of one mind and one class? 
Could we go on working together until 
cliques disappeared and pride took the place 
of indifference, and energy the place of list- 
lessness? Could we keep the spirit of sym- 
pathetic effort and good-natured service 
radiating from the Neighborhood House? 
If we could, there would be no question 
about the fear of God in our village. Ulti- 
mately we would overturn the obstacles. It 
would not be the work of a year or two, 
but of a generation or two — but it would be 
worth while. 



CHAPTER VII 
SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 

Building the Neighborhood House by the 
co-operative method was to many a concrete 
example of Socialism. It seemed to some of 
us that if Socialism did not teach such co- 
operation, it at least ought to. It occurred 
to me that a lecture or sermon on Socialism 
would be interesting and possibly give im- 
pulse to more such co-operation. So I sent 
for Luke Wood, a professional Socialist, 
asking him to come and speak in our church 
on a Sunday morning on the subject, " The 
Religion of a Socialist." This was in the 
days before Wood had become famous for 
causing disorder at services where Rocke- 
feller worshiped and for burning the Ameri- 
can flag along with the flags of other nations 
in order to symbolize the fusing of all nation- 
alities and the birth out of their ashes of a 

102 



SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 103 

new internationalism. For this bit of 
symbolism he spent several months in 
jail. 

I had seen Mr. Wood a few times. One 
of those times was in New York City, when 
he was being arrested while trying to protect 
young girl strikers from the brutality of 
certain of the police. Another time he was 
going into jail for this offense. A third time 
he was in a court room making his case a 
test case and putting up a fight for these 
girls against the police — a fight which he 
won. I had seen him also in the little single 
room in which he lived, and knew that he 
lived in rigid simplicity that was almost 
ascetic. He had done everything in his 
power to identify himself in life and in 
thought with the great mass of poor people. 
He had written a book which was the first 
popular presentation of the life of Jesus from 
an economic viewpoint. 

He came to us dressed in a tweed suit and 
wearing a white flannel shirt. I speak of 
this because that shirt played no small part 



104 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

in his address and the memory which the 
congregation bore away. His coming had 
been announced and the church was filled to 
the doors. Rich and poor were there sitting 
side by side and singing from the same hymn 
books. Among the wealthy men, one was the 
head of a trans-continental railway system. 
He had worked his way up from the ranks 
by his ability to think clearly and calmly and 
his power for organization. Another was a 
corporation lawyer, who was the son of a con- 
gregational minister, and could not, therefore, 
have been anything but poor in his youth. 
The third was a commission merchant who 
had risen from the depths of poverty on New 
York's lower East Side. A fourth was a 
banker who had started his business career 
cleaning out offices in a middle western city 
at fifty cents a week. There were a few 
others and, without exception, they had all 
known poverty and had climbed out of it by 
the force of brain and energy and character. 
The village people who made up the rest of 
the audience were the farmers and the me- 



SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 105 

chanics and tradesmen of the town with their 
wives and families. We had all heard a 
great deal about Socialism and had come to 
hear what specific things it stood for and 
what it wanted of us and promised for 
us. 

As I looked down into the faces of the 
congregation I thought that I had never seen 
a group of men and women more ready to 
receive a constructive message, or more will- 
ing to meet each other half way in any move- 
ment for better mutual understanding and 
sympathy. 

Wood began by telling us that there were 
three great outstanding facts in our day: 
the gasoline engine as the symbol of modern 
science and industry changing the face of the 
earth, Biblical criticism shaking the founda- 
tions of authority and tradition and giving 
us for the first time a picture of the life of 
Jesus from the standpoint of his own times; 
and thirdly, Socialism, a great self-respect 
movement of the workers of the world spring- 
ing out of this rediscovery of Jesus as an 



106 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

economic leader and aiming at nothing less 
than the possession of the reins of govern- 
ment and the ownership of the tools of 
industry. 

He showed how the teaching of Jesus, 
when interpreted in the light of the oppres- 
sion of Roman tyranny under which the Jews 
lived, took on a new and mightier meaning. 
He dwelt at some length on how today Jesus 
and His teaching have another arch-enemy 
more subtle and powerful even than Rome 
and that enemy is the " System." He went 
on to tell us that this " System " was re- 
sponsible for most of the wretchedness of our 
present day; that great fortunes and immense 
power were being piled up out of the ex- 
ploited labor of the workers; that the main- 
spring of the activity of the majority of the 
business men of today was the getting of 
money, which has become such a passion that 
the greater things of the spirit have been 
forgotten or at least have taken second place. 
He said that the evil power of this " System " 
was so great that until recently, at least, a 



SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 107 

man with a thousand dollars could go out 
and hire one thousand men at a dollar a day 
and be their slave driver for that day. But 
of late a great self-respect has been ferment- 
ing in the hearts of the laboring men, a self- 
respect, a part of which at least, is inculcated 
by the teaching of Jesus. This self-respect, 
he said, is binding them together in a great 
brotherhood; they are rising in their might 
and are seeking not only the destruction of 
the capitalist class, but are aiming also at the 
ownership and control of the social tools of 
production, distribution, and exchange, this, 
if possible, within their own generation. 
Finally, that it was essentially a class 
struggle and needed men who would devote 
their time and their talent to the cause of 
the proletariat and to the destruction of 
the " System." He had adopted this cause 
and the flannel shirt as the symbol thereof. 
He told us that he had " declassed " him- 
self, wore the flannel shirt on all occasions, 
and when he had been invited to meet an 
Earl in the house of a certain New York 



108 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

hostess, he had gone there wearing the flannel 
shirt, in spite of her entreaties to wear a less 
conspicuous garb. 

That was all. As he had begun to speak 
the expression on the faces of the congre- 
gation had been one of interest and of some- 
thing like wistfulness, but as he spoke the 
interest faded. The wistfulness gave place 
to disappointment. He presented neither 
ideal nor method, neither principle nor pro- 
gram; nothing specific, only phrases and gen- 
eralities and class hatred and a white flannel 
shirt. Before he had finished, the group that 
had come together in the unity of hope and 
neighborly feeling had been divided by the 
wedge of class consciousness. Anger flamed 
out in both rich and poor, and disgust both 
at the speaker and the church was written 
upon their faces. 

Summoning what courage I could I an- 
swered him and I am going to give you that 
answer here, partly because I think it is a 
pretty good answer, and partly because if 
there is any philosophy underlying this at- 



SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 109 

tempt to put the fear of God in this village 
it is here. 

" Somewhere," I began, " there is a 
Japanese fable about a painter who had 
painted wonderful pictures of dragons, mak- 
ing them seem almost beautiful. A dragon 
saw one of these pictures one day and said 
to himself, ' If he thinks so well of me when 
he has never seen me how much more will be 
like me when he has looked upon me? ' So 
he went and stuck his head through the 
window of the painter's studio. The painter 
took one look at the dragon and then fled 
in terror. Some of us are feeling like that 
painter in regard to Wood's Socialism. 

" I do not stand here as any champion of 
capitalism. It may be that capitalism is 
the father of this bundle of poverty and 
wretchedness that you lay at the door, but 
we want you to prove it before we believe 
it, and until you make your charges specific 
and base them on scientific data and express 
them in plain, every-day language we are 
going to be very careful about passing judg- 



110 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

ment. You must give us something besides 
rhetoric before we help you try to blow up 
the institutions our fathers have founded 
through generations of toil. We want facts, 
not phrases. We will not be satisfied with 
any Thomas Lawson pyrotechnics about the 
* System.' We've heard about the * System ' 
from every half-baked, yellow muck-raker for 
ten years. But we have yet to hear a de- 
scription of it in cool, plain, scientific lan- 
guage. It is always with a collection of 
high-sounding epithets and impassioned 
phrases. 

" I protest against Mr. Wood's class 
hatred. He told us that the man who had 
a thousand dollars could go out and hire one 
thousand men at one dollar a day and be 
their slave driver for that day. He gave 
us the impression that there was no room in 
the heart of Jesus Christ for rich men. Mr. 
Wood looked upon all rich as powerless to 
help in the progress of the work of the world, 
except as they forsook their riches and de- 
classed themselves. He told us how he had 



SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 111 

declassed himself, had adopted a flannel shirt 
(or perhaps a pair of them) which he wore 
on all occasions. 

" I want to say just three things about 
that flannel shirt. First; I want to ask Mr. 
Wood since when have flannel shirts been 
cheaper than boiled shirts? I don't know 
where he gets his or what he pays for them, 
but I know that for years my dream of 
luxury has been the possession of a white 
flannel shirt. Second; I suppose, however, 
you will say that flannel is to you a symbol 
of poverty and that you have adopted it to 
signify your complete disowning of any class 
but the proletary class. Well, so be it. But, 
in that case, why did you not give up your 
recent trip to Rome until the rest of the 
proletary class could afford to go? Third; 
granted the sincerity of your intentions in 
adopting that shirt when you were under the 
impression that it was a poor man's shirt, 
can you understand how it impresses us as 
a violent form of snobbishness? Yes, snob- 
bishness! You wave a flannel shirt at us 



112 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

and say that you are more righteous than we 
because you are poorer. My friend, since 
when has poverty become a trade mark of 
righteousness? 

" One thing more about that shirt. You 
put a great deal of stress upon being a fol- 
lower of one Jesus of Nazareth, and you 
think you were a follower of His when you 
refused to accede to the wishes of your 
hostess in wearing a less conspicuous garb. 
Let me remind you of one of that poor 
man's parables. There was once a King 
whose son was to be married. The King 
sent his servants into the highways and by- 
ways and invited good people and bad to 
come to the wedding. ' But when the King 
came in to behold the guests, he saw there a 
man who had not on a wedding garment; and 
he saith unto him, Friend, how earnest thou in 
hither not having a wedding garment? And 
he was speechless. Then the King said to the 
servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast 
him out into the outer darkness; there shall 
be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.' 



SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 113 

" Mr. Wood, the world has gone too far 
for your class hatred. That gasoline engine 
that you spoke of and a thousand other 
wonders of modern science have been helping 
men to get together faster, and as they have 
been getting together they have been coming 
to understand each other better, to realize 
that they are all pretty much alike — of the 
same flesh and blood — and as they have come 
to understand each other better class hatred 
has been vanishing like the mists before the 
dawn. In this audience there are wide ex- 
tremes of wealth but there is not a man in 
the house but has worked his way up from 
poor boyhood in spite of all the oppression 
of which you spoke. And there are no class 
lines in this house, and there is no snobbish- 
ness, unless it is the snobbishness of your 
flannel shirt. Come, wake up! The King- 
dom of God is not yonder in some distant 
age, it is among us now, here, right here in 
Hilldale. 

" And this brings us to my last protest. 
I not only protest against your unfairness to 



114 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

the employer, I protest against your unfair- 
ness to the working man. Over against your 
picture of the employer as a slave driver, I 
remember this sentence from a statement by 
Henry Ford, who is joining the ranks of 
hundreds and thousands of progressive em- 
ployers. Said Mr. Ford: 'We hope to have 
the satisfaction of making every one of the 
twenty-six thousand employees in our plant 
contented, comfortable, and prosperous.' 
You may say that Mr. Ford is an excep- 
tional employer. Perhaps he is. And it 
may be that his plan is not practical and will 
do more harm than good. But I submit 
that that man's spirit is the spirit that is 
working through the hearts of successful 
employers everywhere. Look at John Wana- 
maker's store in New York, A. Shuman's 
store in Boston, Marshall Field's in Chicago. 
They are doing what they can to work out 
the Golden Rule, the extent to which they 
are able to do unto others as they would be 
done by is counted the criterion of their 
success in the business world. It takes brains 



SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 115 v 

to work out the Golden Rule and some em- 
ployers have not yet sufficient brains to work 
it. But what assurance have you given us 
that employers under Socialism will have any 
more brains or any greater ability to work 
out the Golden Rule than they have 
today? 

" But I say I protest primarily against 
your unfairness to the American working 
man. If he is the man you have made him 
out to be he is a combination of a cringing 
slave, an ignorant, down-trodden clod, and a 
vicious revolutionist. You have given him no 
credit for a desire to meet his employer half 
way in the attempt to work out a just eco- 
nomic basis for labor and capital. You have 
not one word to say in behalf of the great 
host of working men who have made good 
and who are making good, who have made 
true friends with their employers. You pic- 
ture them all in one great class of oppressed 
slaves. I have been an employee myself. I 
suppose every man in your audience here has 
been an employee. Eighty per cent, of them, 



116 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

yes, ninety per cent., are employees today, 
and I think I speak for them when I say that 
the average American working man today re- 
sents your calling him a slave. He is self- 
respecting, he is doing his best to make the 
most of his opportunities, he is trying to edu- 
cate his children, he is reading, he is thinking, 
he is serving his country as well as he knows 
how. He may not always be satisfied with the 
amount of wages he gets or with certain con- 
ditions of his job. Being made of flesh and 
blood he is also likely to neglect opportunities 
now and then for advancement, to skip over 
some of his work in a half-hearted fashion. 
But your average American working man is 
no slave. He bears no hatred for his em- 
ployer. Most of us realize that if we work 
hard enough and make use of our oppor- 
tunities, if we are successful in finding new 
ways of gaining the confidence of our fellow 
men, we, too, may be employers and there is 
no position of trust or of power that we 
cannot obtain and hold if only we have 
enough brains and character. If you want 



SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 117 

our sympathy with your cause you must get 
it by some other method than by appealing 
to us as slaves and trying to play upon our 
passions. 

" In place of Mr. Wood's religion that 
would cure the ills of the world by overthrow- 
ing capital and re-distributing wealth I offer 
you a religion of work and of will. I offer 
a religion of clean hands and pure heart and 
right spirit. Mr. Wood's religion says, 
* Save the man by environment.' The re- 
ligion I offer you in the name of Christ says, 
' Save the environment through the man.' 
There is an idea abroad in the land today 
that the way to make this world happy and 
saintly is to distribute equally the world's 
wealth. It is no new theory, it has been in 
the world, I suppose, as long as laziness and 
inefficiency and loose thinking have been in 
the world. 

" In place of Mr. Wood's class hatred I 
offer you a religion of co-operation. As I 
look around me I see not crowds of men 
hating one another, I see crowds of men 



118 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

anxious to serve one another, wanting only 
to know how. There are one hundred and 
fifty men and women here today who came 
in the hope that a prophet of God would show 
them some new way to be of service to their 
fellow men. The prophet showed no way 
but the way of hate. I offer you a religion, 
I say, of co-operation. If you want to serve 
your fellow men come put your shoulder be- 
side ours in this church and in our Neighbor- 
hood Association. We will begin in practical 
ways to make this community clean and 
happy and democratic. We will work with 
our school teachers, we will work with our 
county officials, we will work with every man 
who wants our help in any undertaking for 
the public good. 

" In place of Mr. Wood's religion, that has 
no faith in human nature, I offer you a re- 
ligion that writes as the first article in its 
creed, ' I believe in my fellow man, believe 
that the good in him is stronger than the bad, 
believe that he is filled with infinite capacity 



SOCIALISM OF ANOTHER SORT 119 

for service, believe that if I give him faith 
and fellowship and hope he will give me 
faith and fellowship and hope in return, be- 
lieve that there is no barrier of selfishness, 
of greed, nor of sin but faith and persistence 
and the Golden Rule will break it down.' 
This religion I offer you as the religion of 
democracy." 

This may have been bad courtesy to Wood 
as a guest. But a minister has a greater 
responsibility to the truth and to his congre- 
gation than to his guest. The congregation 
filed out of the church and gathered in groups 
in the church yard, some upholding Wood 
and others demanding to know why I had 
invited " such an idiot " to the pulpit. 

When the last group had broken up or 
continued its discussion along the road, I sat 
upon the church steps and formulated this 
resolution: To be exceedingly wary in the 
future of the so-called social reformer who 
has never reformed anything but yet talks 
and talks and talks, showing only words in- 



120 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

stead of results; and in the meanwhile to go- 
on with our social experiments and construe^ 
tive practical efforts with less talk and more 
work. 



CHAPTER VIII 

OPERATING THE NEIGHBOR- 
HOOD HOUSE 

It was a big thing to build such a building. 
It would be a bigger thing to run it so that 
it would fulfil the purposes for which it was 
built. To make the motion picture show, the 
bowling alleys, the social room, the games, 
and the fire department serve the entire com- 
munity, the women and children as well as 
the men, to make them the means of culti- 
vating friendship and civic pride and pa- 
triotism — here was a task that would take 
brains and diplomacy, energy and persever- 
ance. It would need men and women who 
had " frequent crops of new ideas and were 
not afraid to winnow them with the flail of 
practical experiment." 

We must keep this building from becoming 

a charitable institution. We hadn't all united 

121 



122 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

to build it for the needy and down-trodden. 
There were few needy and no down-trodden 
here. There wasn't a young man or woman 
in the town who could not make a good living 
if he but had ambition enough to get it and 
work for it. We were going to make that 
building self-supporting. Better that some 
members would have to work overtime or 
secure extra jobs or make sacrifices than that 
the privileges of the house be given to them 
free, only to be abused. The Neighborhood 
House should be for the ambitious, not for 
the idlers. It should be for those who 
wanted to pay their way, and for them only. 
From our experience in Neighbor Free- 
man's barn we had learned that free privi- 
leges are abused privileges, and that popular 
government by the public assembly plan does 
not produce efficiency. With these two 
lessons in mind we drafted bylaws for the 
management of the house placing it under 
the care of a House Committee, which should 
be appointed annually by the President of 
the Neighborhood Association. The various 



OPERATING THE HOUSE 12S 

activities of the house were divided into eight 
departments and each department was made 
the special charge of one member of the 
House Committee. Thus Mrs. Townsend 
was made the head of the Women's Depart- 
ment, with all activities pertaining to women 
exclusively under her jurisdiction; Mr. Dan 
Cushman was appointed head of the depart- 
ment of grounds and tennis court; Mr. Fred 
Black of the bowling alleys; Mr. Ludwig 
Jackson of entertainments; Mr. Edwards of 
accounts and rules; Mr. Freeman of car- 
pentry repairs, and Mr. Saunders of masonry 
and plumbing repairs. As chairman of the 
House Committee, it became my business to 
see that these various departments worked 
together and to have frequent conferences 
with the department heads. As my office 
was in the Neighborhood House, this was a 
convenient and satisfactory arrangement. 

It was practically a commission form of 
government. The department heads were 
responsible to me as chairman of the House 
Committee. I was responsible to the Presi- 



124 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

dent of the Association. The President in 
turn was responsible to the Directors of the 
Association and they were elected by mem- 
bers. The commission form of government 
is not a substitute for popular government. 
It is a corrective. It is a form of popular 
government itself, but one from which the 
evils and dangers of mob rule are eliminated. 
We had tried in Neighbor Freeman's barn 
the election of club officers directly by mem- 
bers in popular meetings. We had found 
that the officers so elected were usually chosen 
on the basis of popularity rather than on the 
basis of efficiency or integrity. 

The bylaws also provided that in order to 
help pay the running expenses of the house 
and in order to make its benefits appreciated 
and respected, the bowling and pool privileges 
should be restricted to the male members of 
the Neighborhood Association, who should 
pay fifty cents a month dues, and to women 
and girl members of the Neighborhood Asso- 
ciation, who should pay ten cents dues; the 
persons paying these dues to be known as 



OPERATING THE HOUSE 125 

Recreation Members. A charge of ten cents 
a game in addition to these dues was made 
for the use of the bowling alleys and of 
two cents a cue for the use of the pool 
table. 

The proof of the wisdom of the bylaws 
and the commission form of the government 
for the house has been in the result. From 
the time of its opening the house has been 
self-supporting. The attendance has aver- 
aged between seven and eight hundred a 
week, and this in a community of less than 
twelve hundred population. Here is a typi- 
cal week's program: 

SUN: MAR. 11—2:00 P. M. POLISH-ENGLISH 
CLASS. 

MON: M 12—7:30 P. M. SEX HYGIENE FOR 
GIRLS UNDER CARE OF VIL- 
LAGE NURSE. 

7:30 P. M. BLUE BIRD CLUB. 
8:00 P. M. CAMP FIRE GIRLS. 

TUE: " 13—7:30 P. M. FIRST AID CLASS 
FOR BOY SCOUTS. 
8:00 P. M. BOY SCOUTS. 



126 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

WED: " 14—7:00 P. M. POLISH-ENGLISH 
CLASS. 

8:00 P. M. MOTION PIC- 
TURES. ADMISSION, 10 AND 
15 CENTS. 



THU; 



15—7:00 P. M. POLISH-ENGLISH 
CLASS. 

8:00 P. M. MEETING OF 
CEMETERY ASSOCIATION. 



FRI; 



16—8:00 P. M. DANCING CLASS. 



SAT 



17—8:00 P. M. MOTION PIC- 
TURES. ADMISSION, 10 AND 
15 CENTS. 



This program did not suddenly materialize 
as soon as the house was opened. Every 
item on it was built up. Leaders had to be 
found for young people's organizations — Boy 
Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, Choral Society, 
and Dramatic Club. Occasionally some 
leader proved unsatisfactory and we found 
it necessary to secure a new one, or old 
leaders became discouraged or tired or per- 
haps they moved from the community. The 



OPERATING THE HOUSE 127 

search for leaders was an almost constant 
one. 

The average existence of a young people's 
organization such as a band or boys' club 
is about one and one-half or two years. The 
organization does not necessarily go to smash 
at the end of that time, but it usually has to 
be reorganized with new members and a new 
program. Thus the Dramatic Club, which 
we organized the first winter, went along 
swimmingly for about a year and a half. 
By that time the novelty had worn off, in- 
terest had declined, and the attendance at 
the meetings had become small and forced. 
So we organized a Choral Society, which 
lasted about two years with varying success 
and interest. The Choral Society was made 
up of the same members who had been in 
the Dramatic Club. When interest in choral 
work grew lax, dramatic work was revived. 
In the same way the Boy Scouts gave place 
to the " Standard Bearers " and the " Church 
Club." These, in their turn, have given place 
to Boy Scouts again. Just as an individual 



128 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

boy will play marbles until he is tired of 
them and then take up baseball, and then 
fishing or tennis, until the pleasure in each 
becomes dull, and then begin the cycle again 
and repeat it over and over, groups of young 
people have their group toys which they take 
up, play with, throw away, forget, take up 
again, play with, throw away, etc., etc., until 
their leaders grow gray or are sent to an 
asylum. The little organizations all have 
their day. 

" In the morning they are like grass which groweth up, 
In the morning it flourisheth and groweth; 
In the evening it is cut down and withereth." 

How eagerly we watched the financial 
returns of the house that first month after 
its opening — for in these we believed we had 
the index of its usefulness and the commu- 
nity's appreciation. During the weeks just 
before the opening of the house I had begun 
to have such fears — such chilled pedal ex- 
tremities — on this subject that I wished I 
might be " suddenly called to a larger field." 



OPERATING THE HOUSE 129 

But our fears were soon at rest. A stream 
of nickels and dimes began to pour in and 
has continued to the present day. It has cost 
us about $4,000.00 a year to run the Neigh- 
borhood House. This amount has come in in 
nickels and dimes from motion picture shows, 
bowling alleys, pool table, etc. Here is a 
typical year's financial statement: 

MAY 25, 1915 TO MAY 25, 1916. 

RECEIPTS 

Bowling Alleys $ 698.15 

Motion Pictures 1791.65 

Eucher and Dance 217-50 

Dancing Class 138.43 

Entertainments and Lectures 59.60 

Tennis 26.05 

Pool 65.80 

Tobacco Stand 197.30 

Miscellaneous Receipts 10.16 

Rental of Auditorium 87.50 

Rental of Fire Department Room 252.00 

Ice Cream 153.44 

Monthly Dues 341.60 

$4039-18 



130 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

EXPENDITURES 

Bowling Alleys $ 467.21 

Motion Pictures 1077.43 

Eucher and Dance 125.38 

Dancing Class 53.50 

Entertainments and Lectures 40.00 

Tennis 16.00 

Pool .81 

Tobacco Stand 154.16 

Miscellaneous Expenses 45.63 

Repairs 43.19 

Equipment 131.66 

Ice Cream 176.90 

Light 188.75 

Motor 4.24 

Superintendent 855.00 

Grounds 126.00 

Fuel 269.51 

Printing 9-75 

Taxes 91.32 

Newspapers and Magazines 2.50 

$3878.94 

Profit 160.24 



$4039.18 

The most important thing we had to learn 
in running the house successfully, a thing 
underlying programs and finances, was dis- 
cipline, or " who was boss." Considerable 



OPERATING THE HOUSE 131 

dissatisfaction was felt among some of the 
members because the House Committee 
seemed to have so much power and the 
members so little, also because of the com- 
mercial charges on the recreation facilities. 
This dissatisfaction blazed into fire one night 
at a meeting of the members when a motion 
was put and unanimously carried recom- 
mending to the House Committee a reduc- 
tion in the charges of the bowling alleys from 
ten cents a game to five cents a game. This 
meeting had been carefully planned and 
caught the House Committee off guard. 
The committee, however, decided to accept 
the recommendation for one month with the 
understanding that if the revenue from the 
bowling alleys showed a substantial decline, 
so that the building would not be self-sup- 
porting, the original charge of ten cents a 
game would be reinstated. The trial was 
made. The bowling alleys were used prob- 
ably ten per cent, more than they had been 
in the month preceding, but the net result 
was a forty per cent, decline in revenue and 



132 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

the building that month showed a deficit of 
$30.00. 

Whereupon, as chairman of the House 
Committee, I called a meeting of the mem- 
bers to lay this matter before them and to 
ask that they rescind their recommendation 
of the preceding month. It would have been 
possible, of course, for the House Committee 
to have simply reinstated the old charge with- 
out action by the members. But it would 
have a better moral effect if the members 
should make the recommendation in the same 
way that they had made it for the reduced 
charge. 

When the time came for the members' 
meeting, however, no one showed up. It was 
a ticklish situation. I found that the mem- 
bers had all gone down to the fire department 
and were having a fire department meeting 
there. It happened that the members of the 
fire department, with a few exceptions, were 
also members of the Neighborhood House. 
So into the fire department meeting I 
marched. I interrupted the chairman and 



OPERATING THE HOUSE 133 

explained that there was House business that 
needed to be attended to which preceded the 
fire department business. I laid before them 
the situation and made an appeal for a square 
deal. After a few moments of suspense, 
during which a few of the members gasped 
for air, the man who had made the original 
motion to reduce the bowling alley charge 
rose to his feet and made a motion to re- 
instate the ten cent charge. The motion 
was seconded and carried unanimously. I 
then turned the meeting back to the fire de- 
partment chairman and went about my busi- 
ness. Everything considered, the affair, while 
unpleasant, had a wholesome effect. The 
authority of the House Committee was 
established. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE MORALS OF THE MOVIES 

" Simply atrocious! We really can't allow 
this sort of motion picture in our Neighbor- 
hood House. It is not at all suitable for 
children — altogether too familiar with drink- 
ing dens and crime. Why, how in the world 
did you come to choose such a picture for this 
place? " Thus accusingly spoke a gentle- 
man greatly interested in the morals of our 
community. 

Concerning the same show, a nice young 
girl complained that the pictures were " too 
tame, not enough punch!" 

The fear of God in an American village 
requires among other things a good motion 
picture show. If the young people of Smith- 
ville don't find it in their home town they will 
go somewhere else to find it. They will never 

134 



THE MORALS OF THE MOVIES 135 

take pride in Smith ville if they must go to 
Jonesville to find their movies. 

In our town the task of managing the 
motion picture show in our Neighborhood 
House fell ultimately to me. I knew what 
we wanted — but getting it proved to be 
another matter. We had wanted a movie 
show that we need not be ashamed of, one 
that we could feel was doing some good in 
the world, bringing fun into the lives of 
people whose lot was pretty hard, broad- 
ening their mental horizons, giving them the 
advantages of books and plays and travel 
which they were either too tired or too poor 
to enjoy first hand. 

The evils usually connected with the motion 
picture show — evils which we set out to over- 
come — are three: 

1. The show's surroundings. Often the 
theater is situated near saloons or public 
dance halls which do their best to attract 
the crowds as they go to and from the 
movies. Around the entrances of the theater 
a group of human vultures usually hover, 



136 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

waiting to flirt or to make familiar remarks 
or to " pick up " girls. 

2. Light and ventilation. Works of evil 
multiply under the cover of darkness and 
the danger of poorly lighted theaters to weak- 
minded and weak-willed young people can 
hardly be exaggerated. As for air, it is 
impossible to suit all tastes. 

Some like it hot, 

Some like it cold, 
Some like it in the show 

Seven days old. 

Foul air, hot or cold, is a menace to the 
public health. But many shows have such 
low ceilings that the air cannot but get foul. 
I have been in shows in New York City 
where the air became so polluted that an 
usher had to go up and down the aisles with 
an automizer, spraying cheap perfume on 
the floor in order to cover the foul odors. 

3. Films. Here was the rub! It had not 
been difficult to overcome the first two evils — 
our Neighborhood House was in a conven- 



THE MORALS OF THE MOVIES 137 

ient place, the surroundings were wholesome, 
and the light and ventilation were satisfac- 
tory. But to secure good films and a steady- 
run of them was another matter. We had 
believed, as probably most people do yet, that 
reels could be selected from a film exchange 
just as fruit is selected from an Italian 
wagon. This is not the case. 

When you contract with a film exchange, 
as a rule, you put yourself on its circuit for 
better or worse and you take its pictures 
when your turn comes for them. You can- 
not pick and choose your reels. You may 
specify so many reels of drama, so many 
reels of comedy, and so many reels of farce. 
But that is the best you can do for a steady 
run of pictures. For special occasions it is 
possible to pick up reprints of old pictures. 
But the exhibitor cannot even see one of these 
old reels and must judge them only by their 
subjects, or by the " press matter " describing 
them. As I write, a row is going on in a 
neighboring village between the Methodist 
parson, the motion picture exhibitor, and the 



138 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

Scoutmaster of a local troop of Boy Scouts. 
The Boy Scouts of the Methodist Church 
desired to give an entertainment with the end 
in view of raising money for uniforms. The 
preacher approved and the motion picture 
exhibitor of the town offered to provide a 
motion picture at cost. 

What picture would they have? Well, it 
must have a good story — something patriotic 
preferred. The exhibitor had a list of re- 
prints that might provide such a picture for 
a special occasion. Yes, here was one, " Our 
Country First." That sounded well. Surely 
it would be patriotic. So the entertainment 
was advertised, the tickets sold, the picture 
procured, and the audience gathered. The 
Scouts had worked hard selling the tickets 
and the audience filled every seat in the 
theater. Then the picture was thrown upon 
the screen. " Our Country First " was its 
title and somewhere in it there was a brave 
soldier boy. But the major part of it was 
given to realistic portrayals of the white slave 
traffic, of gambling hells, and the doings of 



THE MORALS OF THE MOVIES 139 

the underworld. About half-way through 
the picture the parson arose and left the 
room. He returned later, in time to make 
a burning speech to the audience and to call 
down fire upon the head of the exhibitor. 
The friendship ties between parson and ex- 
hibitor are now slack. I, as parson and 
exhibitor, can sympathize with both of them. 
I can understand the parson's embarrass- 
ment, but I know that the poor devil of 
an exhibitor is not to blame. His only 
opportunity to select was from a list of 
reprints and from these only by their 
titles. 

For a steady run of picture programs it 
is impossible (at this writing) to select reels. 
Each exchange has its limited number of films 
and its definite circle or route of customers 
or movie houses which it must supply. The 
films are rushed from one to another in regu- 
lar order. As a film is practically worn out 
at the age of eight or nine months, it is 
the exchange's business to see that every pic- 
ture is kept on the road working for all it 



140 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

is worth. A film lying on the shelf waiting 
for some exhibitor to come and look it over 
is only " boarding " on the exchange. The 
exhibitor must simply get on the circuit and 
take what comes for better or worse. If he 
does not like the service, he can simply cancel 
his contract at its expiration and try another 
exchange.* 

* In order to make clear the present situation in regard 
to motion picture films let me quote from a report by the 
Social Center Committee of the People's Institute of New 
York City. Their experience in trying to get good reels for 
the Social Centers in connections with the Public Schools of 
New York was precisely our experience. 

" For several years, the great bulk of all motion pictures 
has been produced by certain large groups of manufacturers, 
distributed to the public through similar groups of middlemen 
or exchanges, exhibited in a fugitive way, and after a period 
of four or six months, retired into oblivion. 

" The film exchanges contain the output of motion pictures 
for approximately a half-year prior to any given date. No 
single film exchange has more than a fraction even of this 
half-year's output. A film exchange purchases the minimum 
practicable number of copies of any one subject, and aims to 
get the maximum use of each subject purchased. The typical 
motion picture theater changes its program daily, and films 
are scheduled for long periods in advance, being passed ahead 
daily from show to show. Each film exchange has a group of 
regular customers who pay a fixed price by the week, this 
price being greater or less in accord with the age of the films 
which are secured. The rental price of a film diminishes 
from the first day it is made public to that time when it 
disappears from circulation; this without reference to the 
physical or optical condition of the film. 

" The above remarkable trade system holds the film art in 
a grip of iron, and insures a virtual monopoly of motion 
pictures to the commercial shows. The trade system is not a 
result of a conspiracy or of trusts or of anything that can 
or should be reached through law or court procedure, but it 



THE MORALS OF THE MOVIES 141 

We began by contracting with one of the 
largest exchanges for their twice-a-week pro- 
gram. It was called " commercial stuff " and 
consisted of a program of two reels of drama, 
including much blood and thunder (either 
western or gangster), three reels of comedy, 

has been developed in such a way as to produce maximum of 
quick profit with minimum of risk to exhibitors, exchanges, 
and manufacturers. 

" Now, how does the community or lecture center stand 
related to the above situation? 

"A little thought will lead to exactly the result of long 
experience. The commercial show uses films seven days in 
the week, exhibits them in a routine manner, does not as a 
rule even try to select its program; and such is the method 
of doing business to which the film exchange is accustomed. 
But the community center uses films only on one or two or 
three evenings a week, and by this fact alone it is placed 
at a disadvantage in the competition for good films. But the 
community center needs to have special programs. It wants 
programs for children in the afternoons, programs with a 
special human or social purpose for adults in the evening. 
The center is already placed at a disadvantage by the fact 
that it uses only an intermittent program. But when an effort 
is made to select films, the community center becomes actually 
unpopular with the exchange. The exchanges are not stocked 
or equipped to provide either intermittent programs or selected 
programs, and the community center is helpless in the face 
of the circumstance. 

" It will now be plain to the reader why the community 
center is unable to improve materially on the film programs 
of the commercial shows. By a great effort the community 
center director may secure a proportion of distinctly educa- 
tional subjects, but he will usually be unable to get the 
educational subject which is also a dramatic and thrilling one; 
such a film will be already pre-empted by the commercial show 
houses which are the privileged customers of the exchange. 
The inert and banal scenic films, the comics which fail to be 
humorous, the historical films which are not dramatic — these 
the community center may have for its program, provided 
they belong to the output of films for the past six months." 



142 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

including one farce with the usual variations 
of the funny man carrying a ladder and 
striking passers-by in the stomach, and one 
reel of current events about six months old. 

The first night that a program of this 
" commercial stuff " was presented, I watched 
the pictures eagerly, but with a sinking heart. 
Before the show was over I crept out of the 
building and hurried home. It was a Satur- 
day night and I felt like a hypocrite as I 
tried to preach in the church on the following 
day. The pictures had been fairly dripping 
with blood and packed with crimes such as a 
dime novel would not dare to print. In vain 
I hoped that this first program might be an 
exception, but the second and third shows 
were no better. What troubled me most was 
that many in the audience seemed to like such 
pictures. The more killing there was the 
more they seemed to enjoy them. I studied 
other motion picture shows in neighboring 
villages and found the same situation there. 

It is to the credit of America that indecent 
films cannot survive. Neither the people nor 



THE MORALS OF THE MOVIES 143 

the managers want them. But it is the 
shame of America that our demand for ac- 
tion has become so hectic that the people will 
put up with pictures of crime, stealing, re- 
venge, and murder. Action is good and most 
of us care for a story with punch. But it is 
our disgrace that we let our energy and our 
demand for excitement follow the path of 
least resistence to blood and thunder motion 
pictures. To have heroes and to worship 
them may be very well. But will the time 
ever come when we realize that heroes seldom 
carry guns? In every day life probably only 
one man in a thousand carries a revolver and 
we call him a coward. In the movies 
about one man in five carries a revolver and 
uses it three or four times between meals. 
And it is the hero, of course, who uses his 
gun to best advantage. It is wonderful the 
things our heroes can do in the movies — and 
still be heroes! 

I began to write letters and to make ap- 
peals to the film exchange, but I only made 
myself unpopular in that quarter. No op- 



144 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

portunity was given to select films. Film 
exchanges do not operate on that basis. The 
only films that could be selected, as a steady 
run, I found to be what were called " educa- 
tional films." This sounded good. I intro- 
duced one reel a night of this so-called 
" educational stuff," mixed in with the com- 
mercial. The educational reel proved to be 
nothing but illustrated geography — bad geog- 
raphy and poorly illustrated. Occasionally 
there was a semi-interesting picture of some 
industry. After watching one of these reels 
at a neighboring theater one evening — a reel 
that portrayed a modern chicken farm — a six- 
teen year old girl arose in disgust and left 
the theater. As she passed the box office 
window, she said: "To hell with your 
chickens!" This seemed to be the opinion 
of our audience on the educational reels and 
I had to give them up because of their un- 
popularity. The school children said they 
had enough geography in school, the adults 
said they did not come to be educated; thej£ 
came to be amused. 



THE MORALS OF THE MOVIES 145 

We canceled our contract and secured the 
services of another film exchange, but with no 
better results. Then we tried another ex- 
change and still another. The exchanges 
and producers had but one idea; to make 
money. That was well and good, for they 
were in the business for that purpose. But 
they had but one idea how to make money: 
to provide thrills — hate thrills, fear thrills, 
sex thrills, love thrills, murder thrills — noth- 
ing but thrills. " You can't help making 
money with these pictures; there are fifty- 
seven varieties of thrills in them " — this was 
the gist of the exchanges' advertisements to 
the exhibitor. As I write, one such adver- 
tisement from one of the largest film cor- 
porations is before me. It pictures two 
speeding locomotives rushing toward each 
other on the same track and within ten feet 
of a head-on collision. But through that 
ten-foot gap a large automobile, steered by 
a pretty girl, is madly rushing. The ad- 
vertisement announces: 



146 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 



THE FEARLESS FILM STAR 
HELEN HOLMES 
IN "THE RAILROAD RAIDERS" 
A POWERFUL NEW RAILROAD NOVEL IN 
FIFTEEN CHAPTERS 
THE MOST EXCITING, MOST STUPEN- 
DOUS CHAPTER PLAY EVER FILMED. 
A STIRRING NOVEL OF RAILROAD LIFE 
—FULL OF ACTION, PUNCH, THRILLS! 
ANOTHER BIG BOX OFFICE MAGNET 
FOR EXHIBITORS. 



There may have been film exchanges and 
producers offering the products of play- 
wrights who were not totally devoid of imag- 
ination and gray matter and who could pic- 
ture courage without the accompaniment of 
clashing railroad trains and Colt revolvers 
— but I could not locate them. 

Finally, just as we were becoming dis- 
couraged and almost ready to give up, a 
new motion picture corporation appeared on 
the horizon. It controlled the output of sev- 
eral large producing companies and confined 
itself largely to film productions of dramas 
that had been successful on Broadway. This 
corporation offered its service in two pro- 



THE MORALS OF THE MOVIES 147 

grams a week to small exhibitors as well as 
large and based its charge for its reels not 
only upon their age, but upon the population 
of the town, making it possible for a very- 
small town to secure the same class of films 
as those shown in larger towns and cities 
and at moderate prices. Moreover, this cor- 
poration announced the revolutionary and 
heretical belief that the public wanted good 
drama more than sensationalism. It frankly 
announced that it was going to try to furnish 
good drama because it would be more profit- 
able than sensationalism. We clutched at 
this corporation as a drowning man at a 
straw. 

The corporation in practice was more con- 
servative than its announcement would lead 
one to believe. It still kept one foot in the 
mud, evidently fearing that if it pulled loose 
altogether from the mire its progress would 
be too flighty; or possibly it did not want to 
lose all contact with other movie corporations. 
At any rate about one picture in eight or ten 
was objectionable, basing its appeal on sensa- 



148 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

tionalism or upon the ecstatic enjoyment that 
an audience is supposed to find in the antics 
of a drunken man. About eighty per cent, 
of the pictures, however, were worth while. 
Each picture was a whole evening's enter- 
tainment in itself, but we soon added to 
the Saturday evening programs one reel of 
Burton Holmes' Travelogues, and to the 
Wednesday evening programs one reel of 
light comedy. These additional features 
were provided by the same company. Here 
was a typical month's program: 

PICTURES FOR MARCH 



SAT: 


March 


3- 


-Mary Pickford in " The Eternal 
Grind." 


WED: 




7- 


-Wallace Reid and Cleo Ridgely 
in " The Love Mask." 


SAT: 




10- 


-Marguerite Clark in " Molly Make 
Believe." 


WED: 




14- 


-John Barrymore in " The Red 
Widow." 


SAT: 




17- 


-Marie Doro in " The Heart of 
Nora Flynn." 


WED: 


>> 


21- 


-Pauline Frederick in " The Mo- 
ment Before." 


SAT: 




24- 


— Dustin Farnum in " David Gar- 
rick." 



THE MORALS OF THE MOVIES 149 

WED: " 28— Valentine Grant in "The Innocent 

Lie/' 
SAT: " 31— Geraldine Farrar in " Marie Rosa." 

Such plays, together with the Burton 
Holmes Travelogues and the comedies which 
are shown with them, furnished our village 
with movie entertainment twice a week. The 
audiences were made up of families — the 
children, parents, and often the grandparents. 
One of our own young men trained himself 
to run the machine and became our operator. 
Neighbor Freeman (who can always be 
counted upon to do more than his share of 
community work), Ludwig Jackson, the 
grocer, and Wm. Burkley, a young car- 
penter, volunteered their time in selling 
tickets on alternate evenings. We had over- 
come the bad surroundings, the poor light and 
ventilation, and the sensational films of the 
average theater. Moreover, our motion pic- 
ture show paid a large share of the running 
expenses of the Neighborhood House. It 
was by no means a perfect show, but we 
seldom had to blush for it. And Neighbor 



150 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

Smith and Neighbor Jones felt that they 
could bring their wives and their children 
and all would have a good time and no one 
be bored or ashamed. 

And some day, we hoped, we would find 
in our movie show films which would portray 
the drama of every day life, the pathos and 
joy of the men and women about us; perhaps 
we might see heroes who are not single, hand- 
some and curly haired, heroes who do not 
always wear soft white shirts and carry guns 
—yea, we might even find bald-headed heroes 
and bow-legged ones and married ones! 



CHAPTER X 

FIRES, FIRE DEPARTMENT, AND 
FIRE WATER 

Unless a village has a pretty good fire 
department, the fear of fire is apt to be more 
real than the fear of God in the minds of 
property owners. Moreover, a fire depart- 
ment is a social institution in the community. 
In fact, its importance as a social organiza- 
tion is quite often greater than its efficiency 
in putting out fires. When our fire equip- 
ment consisted of a horse-drawn truck with- 
out horses and a few hundred feet of mouse- 
eaten hose it was, notwithstanding, a social 
club with a great deal of self-respect. It 
had bylaws longer than its fire hose. And 
if the fines provided for in said bylaws for 
numerous offences, great and small, had ever 
been collected, a much needed water system 

151 



152 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

could have been installed in the village with 
the proceeds. 

As it was, our method of fighting fire was 
romantic, if nothing else. When a man dis- 
covered that his house was on fire he yelled 
the news to any person within hearing. Such 
a person at once ran to the fire shed, opposite 
the school-house, found it locked, ran around 
to a window, shoved it up, climbed in, 
stumbled around till he found the bell rope 
and then rang vigorously until the village 
was aroused. The village went to the fire 
en masse. They were guided by the smoke. 
Meantime the firemen, when they heard the 
bell, dropped their respective jobs on farms 
and buildings and rushed to the fire shed. It 
wasn't usually more than a mile away. One 
of them scared up a team of horses on the 
way. It didn't matter whose team; it was 
commandeered. The team was hitched to the 
truck, the firemen donned helmets, elaborate, 
if somewhat faded, and then a mad dash to 
the fire was begun, a dash that would have 
made Paul Revere seem rather gouty. The 



FIRES 153 

fire truck's hand pump may have been anti- 
quated and its hose leaky, but its bell was in 
excellent condition. Every turn of one of 
the front wheels clanged that bell and the 
faster the truck sped the harder and faster 
the bell clanged. This expedited the horses 
not a little, for they were not accustomed 
to have bells clanging just behind their 
haunches. So the last stage of the run took 
on something of the aspect of a chariot race. 
The horses may have seemed anxious to get 
the truck to the fire, but, as a matter of fact, 
they were only trying desperately to get 
away from that persistent bell. 

Arrived at the fire the fire department 
and the entire population ran into the burn- 
ing house and carried out the furniture, tore 
up carpets, jerked loose bathroom fixtures, 
and threw from the windows whatever it was 
not convenient to take through the doors. 
At one fire it was said that a conscientious 
fireman carefully carried out a bucket of 
slops to a place of safety. That was better 
than throwing it out of the window. While 



154 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

the furniture was being carried out, certain 
firemen in couples worked vigorously at a 
little hand pump throwing a small stream of 
water wherever it was needed — either on the 
burning building or on the crowd of on- 
lookers. Others formed a line and carried 
buckets of water from the pool or pump. 

But after all a dozen or twenty able-bodied 
volunteers equipped with good legs and a few 
buckets are of more value than a fine steamer 
or motor hose truck manned by lazy and in- 
efficient firemen. The volunteers at least 
save the furniture and often prevent the blaze 
from spreading to adjacent buildings. Ben- 
jamin Franklin, who organized the first fire 
brigade in Philadelphia, proved the worth of 
volunteer firemen equipped only with leather 
buckets. Had it not been for his small bri- 
gade the Quaker City would have had serious 
trouble with its frequent fires. Even if our 
fire department's equipment was neglible, 
we had the foundation of a good company 
in its personnel. It seemed wise, therefore, 
to build on this foundation. For that 



FIRES 155 

reason we had incorporated a large fire de- 
partment room in the basement of our Neigh- 
borhood House. 

It also seemed wise to amalgamate the fire 
department with the Neighborhood Associa- 
tion so that when the time came to increase 
the fire department's apparatus and to make 
a campaign for subscriptions for this purpose, 
it would have the backing of the Association 
and its counsel and direction in the expendi- 
tures of its money. A petition, therefore, 
was prepared by the Hilldale Hook and 
Ladder Company No. 1 to become one of 
the departments of the Neighborhood Asso- 
ciation. The petition was unanimously 
granted and five neighbors were appointed 
as fire directors. The Hook and Ladder 
Company thereupon hitched itself to its truck 
and took up its quarters in the fire rooms at 
the Neighborhood House. A campaign was 
begun at once for increased efficiency and for 
more adequate equipment for fire fighting. 

The members of the fire department made 
a house-to-house canvass of the property 



156 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

owners of the district, acquainting themselves 
with the fire equipment and water supply of 
each property. The fire directors took upon 
themselves a financial campaign to secure 
subscriptions for the purchase of a motor 
hose truck equipped with a pump operating 
from the automobile motor. They had no 
trouble in securing subscriptions. The fear 
of fire was as great as in a primitive com- 
munity. There had been numerous small 
homes and buildings burned and almost any 
time in the year one could point to the ruins 
of some mansion destroyed by fire. Insur- 
ance rates had increased until the average 
frame dwelling was assessed $1.00 for every 
$100.00 of insured value. $1,500.00 was 
subscribed in short order and the motor hose 
truck was purchased. It was excellently 
built out of a second-hand chassis of a very 
good car of foreign make and the pump 
operating from its motor, while guaranteed 
to throw one hundred and fifty gallons per 
minute, in actual use threw from two hun- 
dred to two hundred and fifty gallons per 



FIRES 157 

minute. It carried five hundred feet of 
underwriters' hose, extension ladders, eight 
two and one-half gallon fire extinguishers, 
fire axes, etc. At their own expense the 
members of the fire department painted this 
motor truck red and added many useful 
articles to its equipment. 

To each householder a card (about the size 
of a post card and printed in large red 
letters) was sent to be hung by the tele- 
phone, the card bearing this legend: 

FIRE ! 

IN CASE OF FIRE CALL 

THE HILLDALE FIRE DEPARTMENT 

TELEPHONE 569 

A fire gong was connected with the Neigh- 
borhood House telephone and a fire alarm 
apparatus built close to the building. A 
Motor Hose Company was at once organized 
among the firemen. The fire department 
became composed of the Motor Hose Com- 
pany and the Hook and Ladder Company. 
And had all the young men who wanted to 



158 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

belong to the Motor Hose Company been 
admitted and given a chance to ride upon 
the motor their weight would have crushed 
the machine into the bowels of the earth. 

A bitter rivalry between the Motor Hose 
Company and the Hook and Ladder Com- 
pany immediately developed. The members 
of the Hook and Ladder Company tried to 
make up in speed and individual effectiveness 
what they lacked in equipment. Drills of 
both companies were held several times a 
month and on every holiday. Most im- 
portant meetings were held two or three 
evenings a week. Amendments to the con- 
stitution and bylaws of the different com- 
panies were made by the yard and recon- 
sidered and remade at succeeding meetings. 
This was all as it should be, for it resulted 
in the most intense interest in the fire de- 
partment and the members simply prayed 
for a good fire to show what they could do. 

In order to put the department on a per- 
manent financial basis a Fire District was 
created under the laws of the State of New 



FIRES 159 

York, and a Board of Fire Commissioners 
(to take the place of the Neighborhood Asso- 
ciation) elected by the people of the whole 
district. The Neighborhood Association then 
donated all the new equipment to the Fire 
District and its maintenance was provided for 
out of tax funds. 

If I were writing fiction instead of fact, 
I might work up some sort of dramatic 
climax to this chapter by describing some 
spectacular fire where the fire department 
showed its mettle and its efficiency in putting 
out a blaze as well as in carrying out the 
furniture. But, as a matter of fact, fire de- 
partments are not organized for dramatic 
purposes. Their efficiency is not tested by 
spectacular feats that hit the front pages of 
newspapers. They are organized for the 
mundane purpose of preventing small and 
incipient blazes from becoming big and spec- 
tacular. Their efficiency is not so much in- 
dexed by their conduct at big fires as by the 
absence of big fires. The hero of the volun- 
teer fire department is not the man who saves 



160 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

a life from a building ready to fall in smok- 
ing ruins. He is the man who can work 
steadily in a fire company during the weeks 
and months between fires, keeping himself 
eternally ready to " get there " at the first 
alarm. He is punctual at drills. He an- 
swers present at every roll call. He guards 
the department from the subtle influences 
that would weaken its morale. 

So the history of our reorganized fire de- 
partment is not dramatic. We became proud 
of it because we found that it could put out 
incipient conflagrations before they reached 
the spectacular stage. Our volunteer firemen 
didn't rescue lives from burning buildings, 
because they didn't let the buildings burn. 

Nevertheless the dramatic element was not 
lacking that first year, although it came in a 
way we least expected. While waiting for a 
fire and a chance to use their new equipment, 
the firemen worked off their surplus energy 
in making further amendments to their by- 
laws. These were finally so plastered up 
with amendments, many of them contradic- 



FIRES 161 

tory or ambiguously worded, that a corpora- 
tion lawyer would have had great difficulty 
in interpreting the document. So it was de- 
cided that an entire new set of bylaws must 
be drafted. This was done and I was one of 
a committee for the purpose. The committee 
worked several evenings in getting these new 
bylaws in shape. In the article entitled 
" Offenses and Penalties " we incorporated 
two sections which had always been rules of 
the department. One of these sections pro- 
hibited gambling and the other prohibited 
liquor from the fire room. When the new 
set of laws was finally completed we sub- 
mitted it to the department as a whole for 
ratification. It took several meetings for the 
department to consider it, for these laws 
were held as important as the laws of the 
Medes and Persians. It was at one of the 
meetings held during my absence from the 
community that a few of the fellows, who 
were opposed to the prohibition against liquor 
and gambling, persuaded the department to 
vote to omit these two sections. 



162 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

I heard of the omission soon after the laws 
had been submitted for approval to the Board 
of Fire Commissioners, and I made a protest 
to the Board. The Board sustained the pro- 
test and ordered the omitted sections to be 
reinserted. 

" But," protested Dan Cushman, who was 
Chief of the department, "I'm afraid some 
of these fellows are going to resign if these 
prohibitions are inserted." 

"Well," replied Mr. Stuart, President of 
the Board, " let them resign." 

" No," spoke up Mr. Grant, another mem- 
ber of the Board, " don't let them resign, find 
out who they are, and then fire them. Fire 
them all. Be sure you get every one. If 
you leave two or three they will only make 
trouble later." 

This was small comfort to the Chief, who 
returned to the department and reported the 
Board's opinions. There was much brave 
talk which finally issued in a call for a 
special meeting. The proceedings of that 
meeting, while " entirely friendly," as a news- 



FIRES 163 

paper afterward put it, were such that the 
neighbors did not sleep until after their ac- 
customed hours for retiring. I quote from 
a column of the "Dellwood Bugle": 

" An interesting debate which has aroused the in- 
terest of the neighborhood took place at the special 
meeting of the fire department last Monday evening. 
The debate was upon the question whether or not the 
fire department should incorporate in its bylaws rules 
against gambling and liquor in the fire room or on 
the premises. 

" Those in favor of allowing liquor and gambling in 
the fire room argued that the personal liberties of the 
members of the fire department should not be inter- 
fered with; that the Fire Commissioners nor no one 
else had any right to dictate in the matter; that the 
Commissioners' business was purely the financial end of 
the fire department; that liquor was allowed at the 
Country Club and that the fire department was the 
poor man's club and ought to be allowed the same 
privilege; that playing poker for a $10.00 stake was 
no more gambling than playing in a bowling tourna- 
ment for a box of cigars or a bag of peanuts; that a 
drink of whiskey after a fire on a cold night might 
save a fireman from pneumonia, and that the most 
efficient volunteer fire company of the state allowed 
liquor and gambling and those added to their efficiency 
because they attracted more men to the fire department. 

" Mr. Morse argued against gambling and liquor in 
the fire room and on the premises, admitted with pride 



164 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

that he had won a sack of peanuts from Chief Cush- 
man in a bowling tournament, and hoped to do so 
again. He said that it was a far cry between bowling 
in a bowling tournament and playing in a poker game 
for a $10.00 stake, that the element of chance in bowl- 
ing was at a minimum and skill at a maximum, while 
in poker chance was at a maximum and skill at a 
minimum. The law, he said, recognizes this and sanc- 
tions a bowling tournament, but prohibits poker for 
money. As for the Fire Commissioners, he said, their 
powers were defined by the law of the State of New 
York, and not by the fire department. T ne y na( ^ n °t 
tried to dictate nor interfere with the personal liberties 
of the members, but had advised them against making 
a false step in this regard, knowing that the intro- 
duction of liquor and gambling into the fire room would 
destroy the good will of the taxpayers, lessen the con- 
fidence of the citizens, and soon destroy the fire de- 
partment. Mr. Morse said that there were several 
saloons in Hilldale and a large amount of out-of-doors, 
and if any member felt that he needed liquor or 
gambling, his needs could probably be attended to 
elsewhere, but the fire department should be kept clean 
and its reputation unimpaired. If liquor was allowed 
as a stimulant it would be most difficult to draw the 
line as to when stimulants were needed and when they 
were not. As for the need of a stimulant after a cold 
night, he held that a cup of coffee might be more effec- 
tive and less dangerous and more honorable than a 
glass of whiskey. He denied that the purpose of the 
fire department was to be a poor man's club; he held 
that its purpose was to put out fires, and that it ought 



FIRES 165 

not to tolerate anything that would decrease its ef- 
ficiency in so doing. He said he believed that the 
majority of the members of the fire department would 
refuse to belong to the organization if it were turned 
into a club for drinking and gambling. As for the 
men of the town being more attracted to a fire depart- 
ment where liquor and gambling were allowed he held 
that, on the contrary, the best citizens — the brainiest, 
strongest, and most respected — would be repelled by 
such a fire department and would give their support 
and encouragement only to a department that refused 
to allow liquor and gambling, and that it was not the 
strongest men of any community who did most of the 
drinking and gambling, but the weaklings and fools. 
" The argument was entirely friendly and closed 
with a motion to the effect that so long as the fire 
department is in the Neighborhood House positively no 
liquor or gambling should be allowed in the fire rooms 
or upon the premises and that the prohibitions should 
be incorporated in the bylaws. This motion was 
carried." 



Thus we established our fire department, 
equipped it, maintained it, and kept fire- 
water out of it. Fires were no less frequent 
than before, but the department saw to it 
that whenever the fire was reported in time 
and wherever water was available the small 
blazes were smothered before they wrought 



166 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

much damage. In one case where a barn was 
burning and no water was available, the fire 
was extinguished with the contents of a cess- 
pool. Even now as I write here in my little 
office in the Neighborhood House, two big 
motor trucks are in the fire room beneath 
me, a telephone is at my right hand, and at 
my left a button connected with the fire 
alarm. I know that if a fire is reported 
over the telephone I have but to press this 
button and, within three or four minutes at 
most, these two motors will be manned and 
on their way to the fire. 



CHAPTER XI 
A VILLAGE INDUSTRY 

The construction of the Neighborhood 
House during the winter of 1913 had been 
a God-send to many carpenters who would 
otherwise have been without work. As the 
winter of 1914 approached, however, the 
shadows of no-work began to darken the 
homes of builders. There were forty-nine 
carpenters in our village and next to the 
farmers and gardeners, they were our largest 
industrial class. To be without work not 
only meant hardship for themselves and their 
families, but to the butchers and the grocers 
and the other tradesmen who depended upon 
their custom. If we could find some plan of 
providing work for these carpenters and 
bring more money into the community, we 
would render a service not only to the car- 
penters and their families, but to the mer- 

167 



168 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

chants and to the community as a whole. 

Having thought out a plan which might 
help I called a mass meeting of all the car- 
penters of the village in the fire department 
room one evening in November and laid be- 
fore them the following plan: There were 
more than one thousand wealthy men in our 
section of the state and there was no closed 
season on them. They all needed (whether 
they knew it or not) garden furniture and 
bird houses on their estates. Our carpenters 
could make bird houses and garden furniture 
as well as any one if they had the right de- 
signs and a little help in marketing their 
products. I offered to provide the designs 
and help market the products, but the car- 
penters must do the work, do it well, and 
take the risk of loss. I had secured bird 
house designs from the United States De- 
partment of Agriculture's Farmers' Bulletin 
No. 609, and garden furniture designs from 
friends in the neighborhood and from various 
photographs and cuts. I proposed that each 
carpenter take home one of these designs, 



A VILLAGE INDUSTRY 169 

make up a sample article from it and bring 
it to the Neighborhood House for exhibition. 
When all the samples were accumulated, I 
proposed to photograph them, make a small 
catalogue of them and invite prospective 
customers to the house to see them. 

As orders came in they would be turned 
over to the men who made the samples. 
Each carpenter would fill the orders he 
received in his own home workshop. The 
selling price of each article would be fixed 
by the price our competitors in other states 
were charging. Each carpenter would re- 
ceive eighty per cent, of this price out of 
which he would pay for labor and material, 
ten per cent, would be deducted for cash, 
and the remaining ten per cent, go to the 
Association to cover the cost of photographs, 
catalogues, postage, etc. 

Of the thirty-five or forty carpenters at 
that meeting where the plan was proposed, 
only half a dozen had enough imagination to 
see anything in it, and naturally these half- 
dozen were among the best carpenters in the 



170 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

village. Each of these took home two or 
three designs, made samples, and brought 
them to the Neighborhood House. Here 
they were photographed and a catalogue was 
made and sent to all the estate owners in 
our section of the state. For this purpose 
$100.00 was needed and was borrowed from 
the Neighborhood Association. 

That first year $1,100.00 worth of these 
products were sold, most of it to customers 
outside the community and all of it made in 
the home workshops of these half-dozen car- 
penters. Certain weaknesses in our plan, 
however, became apparent. First: We had 
no stock on hand for customers who wanted 
immediate delivery. Making up stock only 
after orders had been received and then only 
on overtime or rainy days gave poor service 
to customers. Second: Since each carpenter 
had to buy his own material and make it up 
altogether by hand without the use of ma- 
chinery it was costly. Third: Lack of capi- 
tal. Fourth: Half a dozen workshops gave 
rise to many petty little inconveniences. 



A VILLAGE INDUSTRY 171 

Fifth: Ten per cent, gross profit was not 
enough to cover the cost of marketing. 
Sixth: Too many poor designs. 

Moreover, all the work of managing, of 
salesmanship, and often of delivery fell upon 
my shoulders. In the midst of the prepara- 
tion of a sermon I would be called three or 
four times to exhibit our samples of furniture 
and bird houses or to listen to the complaints 
of customers or workmen or to deliver a 
bench or an order of bird houses ten or fifteen 
miles away. Or possibly I must trot up to 
some carpenter's home to demand why in 
thunder a certain order was not finished. It 
was my own fault for not planning the 
scheme better or making allowance at the 
beginning for a delivery department. Not 
having made such allowance I took my pun- 
ishment, my comfort being that work and 
money were coming into the community and 
there would be less hardship among the 
families of the poor. 

To correct these weaknesses the carpenters 
reorganized during the following fall. They 



172 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

called their venture " The Neighborhood 
Craft." From twenty business men they 
borrowed $2,600.00 capital through our 
Neighborhood Association. The lenders of 
the money were the wealthy men on the 
estates, and they insisted on lending it in 
such a way that they could not possibly 
make more than four per cent, on their 
investment. Five carpenters added $250.00 
to the capital fund out of their wages. 
They elected a Board of Directors made 
up of three of the wealthy men who had 
loaned the capital and three of the work- 
men, and myself as chairman and general 
factotum. We sought and obtained the 
gratuitous advice of architects and garden 
experts on better designs. 

We rented Neighbor Freeman's barn as a 
common workshop and installed a rip saw, 
band saw, and morticing machine. Thus our 
first playhouse became our first workshop. 
We discontinued the piece work basis and de- 
cided to pay a regular day's wage in our shop. 
We did this because by the piece work 



A VILLAGE INDUSTRY 173 

method we could employ the men only 
through slack seasons and were unable to 
hold them in the shop during the spring and 
summer, when there was great need for them 
to make up special orders, to paint stock and 
specials, and to crate and ship orders from 
out of town. Some of our wealthy directors 
who had had experience in developing fac- 
tories objected to the day wage basis on the 
ground that it killed initiative and encour- 
aged slackness. I felt certain, however, that 
our men would be proof against such ten- 
dencies and insisted upon the wage basis. 
The carpenters elected one of their number 
to be foreman so that the workshop would 
have a head who would maintain a high stan- 
dard of workmanship. I took as my job the 
getting up of new and better catalogues. 
Then the carpenters went to work and 
throughout the winter and spring they used 
up their capital in making up stock. 

The saws buzzed and the hammers rapped 
through fair weather and foul in Neighbor 
Freeman's barn. Everybody seemed happy. 



174 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

The workmanship improved, the designs were 
more artistic, the prices were no higher than 
our competitors — the whole arrangement 
seemed ideal. 

When June came we held an exhibition of 
our products on the grounds of the Neigh- 
borhood House. Attractively printed invita- 
tions to the exhibition were mailed broadcast. 
The new catalogues were also sent out. All 
the influence of the Neighborhood Association 
was used in boosting the project in our own 
community and others. Our wealthy neigh- 
bors agreed to recommend the Craft to their 
friends. In fact, every method short of vio- 
lence was used to bring customers to the 
exhibition. Two weeks passed without a sale 
— and then they came. They bought. They 
went away. They came back and brought 
their friends along. The sales kept up so 
steadily that the exhibition was continued on 
the grounds of the Neighborhood House 
throughout the summer. In all, $4,800.00 
worth of furniture and bird houses were sold 
that season. 



A VILLAGE INDUSTRY 175 

Then the blow came. Our inventory and 
financial reckoning at the close of the season 
showed a loss of $187.00 on the year's busi- 
ness. Accounts had been kept accurately 
and a detailed card index system of costs had 
been employed to stop all leaks. But that 
$187.00 loss stared us in the face. It made 
me feel like a robber. As manager of the 
enterprise, I had been largely responsible for 
raising the capital and of course I could not 
have done it had I not felt that the small 
percentage of interest that our neighbors 
asked would be forthcoming. But there we 
were without any interest and six per cent, 
of our capital gone. Finding out what had 
become of that money and how the loss had 
occurred was a rather bitter experience. But 
it must be set down here in the record of the 
starting of this village industry. 

After much questioning of the workmen, 
coupled with my own observations, I found 
that the loss had come by paying a high daily 
wage in the workshop to all the craftsmen, 
when one or two of the men there were not 



176 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 
earning that amount for the Craft. All of 
the craftsmen, as I have said, were excellent 
workmen. They did not loaf nor kill time. 
But one or two of them were exceedingly 
slow. If they had all eternity to complete 
their products, those products would probably 
not have been excelled in strength, beauty, 
and workmanship. But, unfortunately, they 
did not have all eternity. They had but a 
few fleeting months. The result was that 
each day they received about $4.00 pay for 
work which sold for $3.00. They " ate their 
heads off," as a farmer would say of cows 
that ate more than they produced. They not 
only ate their own heads off, they ate up the 
profits on the labor of the other men, they 
ate up the interest on the capital, they ate 
up part of the capital itself so that the final 
reckoning showed $187.00 loss. 

But why could not the other workmen in 
the shop have seen this and made a protest? 
They had not been used to thinking in terms 
of interest and profit on each day's labor. 
The fact that every hour and every minute 



A VILLAGE INDUSTRY 177 

of a working day for every one of them 
meant either profit or loss to all was not a 
vivid reality. They did not want to com- 
plain about a fellow-worker in the union. 
But most of all they felt that the particular 
man who was slowest was being protected 
from the temptations of the " poor man's 
friend " while in the workshop. They didn't 
have the heart to see him go. 

The workmen as a whole (with one or two 
exceptions) did not feel any moral respon- 
sibility for the loss nor the failure to pay 
interest. I am quite sure that had each man 
borrowed his proportion of the general capi- 
tal individually for a private enterprise he 
would have felt his responsibility keenly and 
been most conscientious in making up the 
loss. But the fact that their responsibility 
was divided among several workmen seemed 
in some subtle way to make it less binding 
upon each one individually. I held myself 
largely responsible for this situation. If I 
had managed the thing rightly the men would 
have felt more strongly their financial obliga- 



178 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

tions and their individual responsibility for 
the success of the enterprise. 

There was no use wasting tears about it. 
The thing to do was to rectify the error and 
to make enough profit during the coming 
year to make up for the past year's loss. 
We worked out a new plan for the coming 
year, abolishing the wage basis in the work- 
shop and going back to the piece work 
basis. Each craftsman, instead of being paid 
by the day, would be paid a contract price 
for each piece. Labor-saving machinery had 
been installed, the design and workmanship 
of the articles had been standardized and I 
believed that good craftsmen by conscientious 
work could earn a good wage by this method. 
The craftsmen who were too slow to earn 
fair wages by this method would auto- 
matically drop out. The price paid to each 
craftsman for the manufacture of an article, 
including material and labor, with the ex- 
ception of the last coat of paint would be 
sixty-five per cent, of the selling price of that 
article. The selling price would have to be 



A VILLAGE INDUSTRY 179 

fixed by the price charged by our competi- 
tors for similar articles. This plan would 
give experienced workmen the chance to earn 
more than inexperienced or slow workmen. 
Each workman would be allowed the use of 
the machinery in the shop and to employ 
apprentices of his own as he desired, these 
apprentices to be paid by their respective 
employers and not by the Craft. This plan, 
if carried out, guaranteed a thirty-five per 
cent, gross profit on every article we manu- 
factured. Out of this thirty-five per cent, 
gross profit would come the expense for cata- 
logues, postage, rent, insurance, fuel, light, 
material, depreciation of machinery, and in- 
terest on the capital invested. At the rate 
of business which we were then doing this 
expense could all be paid, leaving a sub- 
stantial surplus at the end of the year for 
preferred stock and for dividing among 
the craftsmen owning common stock. 

The meeting of the craftsmen at which 
this plan was proposed was not exactly 
happy. We met around a table at the 



180 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

Neighborhood House. (It is often well to 
have a table separating the various members 
of a meeting, and sometimes the wider the 
table the greater the safety.) Various ob- 
jections were raised by a few of the men. 
One held that it would be against the union. 
Another held that the old plan was good 
enough. The other objections were modi- 
fications or combinations of these two. But 
in the face of these objections our experience 
stared us in the face: we had failed to make 
good on the old plan; we had lost $187.00. 
If any one didn't like the new plan, could 
he suggest a better one that would insure 
us against such loss for the year ahead? 

Finally one workman made this appeal, 
" Our secretary and manager has stuck by 
us fellows and always given us a square deal. 
He started this whole business for us and he 
ought to have his say about how it's run. I 
propose that we give his plan a trial. He 
has worked this thing out and thinks that it 
will be for the good of everybody concerned. 
Even if we don't think so let's stand by him 



A VILLAGE INDUSTRY 181 

while we try it. If it doesn't work this year 
we can try some other plan next year." 

This was hard common sense. Some of 
the workmen agreed at once and after a little 
hesitation the vote was made unanimous in 
favor of the new plan. 

A little while later the man who had been 
most responsible for our loss dropped out of 
the Craft. A big hearted friend, who called 
himself a Socialist and looked upon this new 
plan as oppression of the poor and honest 
workman, declined to soil his hands with piece 
work. But the rest of the craftsmen went 
to work with good sporting spirit, resolved 
to put the thing on a business basis and make 
good the loss. 



CHAPTER XII 
AN EPIDEMIC 

Now suddenly the searchlight of a great 
trial fell upon the neighboring city and the 
country around about, and we saw death in 
the guise of a piper piping away the chil- 
dren from this village and that into a land 
from which some would not return and others 
would limp back, lame and crippled. It was 
Infantile Paralysis or poliomyelitis as the 
doctors called it, although they knew little 
more about it than its name. We watched 
it come out from the city, along the line of 
the railroad, striking first this village and 
that and yet few of us believed that it could 
come near us. But come it did. It was 
early in July that we received our first real 
shock and began to wake up to the fact that 
the piper would be in our community soon. 

182 



AN EPIDEMIC 183 

The children of the chauffeur of Mr. Willard, 
who lived in Rosemere, only ten miles away, 
fell ill with the disease and one of them died. 
A few days later Mr. Willard's little hoy, his 
only child, was also stricken. His whole 
estate was at once put under quarantine. 
Mr. Willard called up a neighbor and busi- 
ness friend, Mr. Bridge, urged him to secure 
a specialist for his (Mr. Willard's) son, and 
then to do what he could to guard the rest 
of the community against a spread of the 
disease. Mr. Bridge at once got busy. He 
secured a specialist for Mr. Willard's son and 
the specialist was able to save his life. Next 
Mr. Bridge organized the neighbors into a 
public health committee to co-operate with 
the State Department of Health in enforcing 
strict quarantine over the whole county and 
in securing the services of a corps of special- 
ists to study and treat cases in our county 
and prevent the spread of the disease. It is 
to the everlasting credit of these specialists 
and to the medical profession that they came 
at the first call, giving up their vacations and 



184* FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

on salaries that did not pay for the upkeep 
of the automobiles they had to use. 

Within forty-eight hours Mr. Bridge and 
his committee had leased a home and labora- 
tories for the doctors in Roseiiiere. They 
went to work at once diagnosing suspected 
cases, isolating positive cases, and establishing 
a strict quarantine around the centers of 
infection. 

Rapidly as the doctors worked, however, 
they could not keep pace with the piper. By 
the time the specialists were established there 
were already hundreds of cases in the county. 
The parents of children afflicted became 
frantic with fear, for, as a rule, the local 
physician was practically unable to render 
any assistance. The only possible cure 
seemed to lie in the serum which the special- 
ists had in small quantities. This serum was 
prepared from the blood of persons who had 
recovered from the disease and were immune 
to it. Night and day the specialists worked, 
racing in large automobiles from six o'clock 
in the morning until eleven or twelve at night. 



AN EPIDEMIC 185 

They went into the poorest homes and gave 
to the poorest Polish and Italian children the 
same careful diagnosis and treatment that 
they gave to rich children. 

In the midst of their race with death, the 
specialists came into head-on collisions with 
some of the obstacles which we had been 
fighting for years in the attempt to put the 
fear of the Lord in our village. About a 
hundred citizens of Pendleton, the nearest 
village to us on the east, came before the 
Town Board in a series of two or three meet- 
ings, made addresses and presented a petition 
signed by about three hundred persons. The 
gist of their protest and petition was that 
this whole epidemic was largely hysteria 
caused primarily by the stolen millions 
of John D. Rockefeller and Andrew 
Carnegie. These men had established en- 
dowments for medical research, according to 
the petitioners. These endowments were so 
much honey to which the bees would be 
attracted. The doctors were the bees. They 
had manufactured this epidemic in order to 



186 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

get more honey. They were stinging us. 
The petitioners further called the doctors 
" medical bandits " and objected strenuously 
to the removal of children to the isolation 
hospitals on the ground that this was an 
interference with the personal liberties of the 
parents. 

How well we knew that tribe of petitioners ! 
It was the same tribe that came out to every 
election where an improvement for the town 
or community was to be voted upon. They 
were always " agin " the improvement. They 
voted against every appropriation to increase 
the efficiency of the public school. " The old 
school is good enough," they said, " it pro- 
duced us, what more could you want? " No 
preacher could convince that tribe that they 
were not sinless, that the wisdom of the ages 
had not come to its perfect bloom in them. 
When it was suggested to them that the 
doctors knew more about the diagnosis and 
treatment of the disease than they did, they 
were insulted. They boldly set up their own 
opinions over against the trained judgment 



AN EPIDEMIC 187 

of the experts and insisted that the whole 
town be governed by their opinions instead 
of by the advice of specialists. 

It was useless to argue with the tribe. 
One could better argue with the hind legs 
of a mule. Most of them will go to their 
graves protesting and if they get as far as 
the Pearly Gates, they will probably present 
a petition and protest against the architecture 
and extravagance of the Holy City. The 
specialists took time from their patients in 
the effort to make their work and their system 
clear to these protestors, but while they could 
give them wisdom they could not give them 
understanding. So the specialists returned 
to their patients and allowed the protestors 
the privilege of howling at the moon. 

It is with no little pride that I set down 
a different story concerning the people of our 
village. For when the doctors turned to us 
for help we did not give them a stone. It 
was a Saturday noon when they telephoned 
to us that another isolation hospital in our 
section would be of great value in fighting 



188 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

the epidemic. Could we secure one for them? 
It was Mr. Townsend, our President, who 
received the message. " Sure, we will give 
you one," he said, " I don't know where it 
will be, nor how we will get it, but we will 
have it ready for you by next Tuesday." 

A meeting of the Directors of our Asso- 
ciation was called that afternoon. A group 
of gentlemen who owned a comfortable old 
farm house not far from the station agreed 
to give the use of the house as a hospital, 
rent free. Mr. Townsend and I went before 
the motion picture audience that evening and 
called for volunteers to omit church the fol- 
lowing Sunday and to turn out and clean 
and disinfect this building and make it fresh 
and sanitary. A local plumber worked his 
force of men all that night, connecting a 
water supply and putting in new fixtures 
and generally overhauling the plumbing of 
the old house. 

On Sunday morning some seventy or sev- 
enty-five people appeared early with mops 
and brooms and soap and brushes. Some of 



AN EPIDEMIC 189 

these folks were rich and some were poor, 
but they all set to work with a will and by 
four o'clock in the afternoon the house had 
a complete cleaning from garret to cellar 
(including both), and was in excellent sani- 
tary order for its new purpose. Every 
window had been washed and mosquito net- 
ting nailed on the outside, every floor had 
been scrubbed, the paper had been stripped 
from the walls and the walls calcimined. On 
Monday and Tuesday the telephone and light 
companies connected their wires and Mrs. 
Townsend, who had spent Sunday scrubbing 
the floors and blackening the stove, went to 
the city and bought hospital necessities, 
kitchen utensils, linen, blankets, and the 
thousand and one things necessary to con- 
duct a hospital. Nurses, a housekeeper, a 
laundress, and a cook were secured, but not 
without great difficulty. By Tuesday night 
the building was equipped and turned over 
to the specialists. On Thursday the patients 
began to arrive. 

Meanwhile we were having our troubles 



190 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

enforcing quarantine around the houses where 
the disease had broken out in our own com- 
munity. We found that moral suasion was 
not sufficient to keep some of the more 
ignorant families from breaking quarantine 
and endangering others. We therefore 
employed William Burkley as a sanitary 
inspector, secured his appointment as such 
from the Board of Health of the township, 
provided him with a badge and gave him 
the job of enforcing the quarantine on every 
infected house. He saw to it that the wants 
of the various families were attended to, that 
their mail was secured from the post office 
and left in a convenient place for them. He 
saw that the grocery and market wagons did 
not use crates or baskets that had been in 
the infected houses. Each family was pro- 
vided with a box about one hundred feet from 
the house. Groceries, meat, milk, etc., were 
placed in this box and the container was after- 
ward burned. The law of the state allowed 
one wage-earner in each house to go to his 
work. This, however, would have made 



AN EPIDEMIC 191 

valueless any quarantine arrangement. So 
we authorized Burkley to keep every wage- 
earner in his own home and pay him his full 
wage during quarantine. I am glad to say 
that most of the employers agreed to pay this 
wage as soon as requested. Two or three 
who worked as mechanics were paid out of 
the funds of the Health Committee, funds 
raised by generous popular subscription. 
Burkley had his troubles and his motorcycle 
was putt-putting over the community from 
morning till night, but he stuck to his job 
and soon won the respect and the confidence 
of the quarantined families as well as the rest 
of the neighborhood. 

Thirteen cases had developed by the time 
the hospital was in operation and the quar- 
antine established. Eleven of these cases had 
been taken to other hospitals and the other 
two to our own. 

And now the piper began to find his work 
too difficult and prepared to leave the town 
for places more congenial. Our hospital went 
on serving these other communities as well as 



192 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

our own for six weeks, caring for twenty-nine 
patients in all. Only two were lost, and one 
of these had been brought to the hospital 
in a dying condition. The per cent, of 
mortality (less than eight) was much smaller 
than the records of the neighboring city, 
which for the period of the epidemic was 
about twenty-six per cent. And when 
our cases were discharged and the hospital 
closed there were but two cases of paralysis 
to be given after-treatments. Only one of 
these failed to yield to the after-treatments. 
Credit for this record belongs to the resident 
physician and to the nurses who worked 
skilfully and cheerfully through the hot 
summer days in spite of the handicaps in- 
evitable to a hastily improvised hospital. It 
is interesting to know that fourteen of our 
twenty-nine cases were from Pendleton, the 
very town where the protest against this 
" Rockefeller epidemic " had been staged. 

When the piper had departed and we had 
expressed to the doctors and nurses a small 
measure of our appreciation for their serv- 



AN EPIDEMIC 193 

ices and given what comfort we could to the 
fathers and mothers whose children the piper 
had taken, we took an inventory of the lessons 
we had learned from the epidemic. It had 
shown us our weaknesses. First among these 
was the bad sanitation of the average village. 
Pendleton, for example, had no sewerage 
system; Hilldale had neither sewerage sys- 
tem, water system, nor public dump, and 
Dellwood had considered every vacant lot 
a community dump. When these bad sani- 
tary conditions had been revealed a great 
cry had gone up from a few near-sighted real 
estate men and small minded merchants, who 
protested that it was very bad for the com- 
munity to have these conditions pointed out, 
that it lowered the price of land and turned 
away business from the town. This, of 
course, was rank foolishness. There is no 
better way to cure bad sanitary conditions 
than to drag them into the sunlight of 
publicity. 

But worse than the sanitary conditions and 
not so easy to remedy was the vast amount 



194 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

of popular ignorance, narrow-mindedness, 
and common pig-headedness that had been 
shown in the meetings of protest held before 
the Town Board. These meetings had not 
been representative of all America. But 
they were representative of the reactionary 
elements in the typical American village. 
This stupidity and narrow-mindedness could 
not be remedied in a day or a week. Much 
of it would depart only after a goodly 
number of funerals. Some of it, like the 
poor, would be always with us. It was a 
thing that the prophets and the pioneers of 
all the ages had had to fight and it had 
crucified its saviours in every generation. 
The only cure for it would be education — 
education in the public school, the churches, 
the Neighborhood House, and, best of all, 
the education of the example of good people 
working steadily on undaunted and undis- 
couraged by the opposition. 

But the epidemic had shown us not only 
our weaknesses; it had shown elements of 
encouragement as well. The first of these 



AN EPIDEMIC 195 

had been the spirit of the doctors themselves, 
not only of the State Department of Health, 
but our own local physicians. Time was 
when it was considered good form for a 
doctor to be absolutely sure in every diag- 
nosis and every remedy. If he admitted a 
doubt it was supposed that he would lessen 
the confidence of his patients. Doctors 
seemed to think that if they confessed to 
not knowing everything people would not 
believe they knew anything. That time had 
passed. The doctors had been frank and 
honest in admitting their ignorance and im- 
potence in this epidemic. The present-day 
physician when he doesn't know says he 
doesn't know, and in so doing he wins the 
confidence of his patients. Moreover, instead 
of petty jealousies which had once been 
common in the medical profession and which, 
probably, still exist in ordinary times had 
been swept away by the doctors' spirit of 
co-operation with each other and with the 
State Department of Health. They had 
given to us the impression that they were 



196 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

eager in their search for truth. By this 
spirit they had won the admiration of all 
thinking men and women. 

And then there was the co-operative spirit 
shown by the people of our own village, rich 
and poor, in fitting up our hospital. I take 
a great deal of sinful pride in that enterprise. 
It was a visible and tangible result of a 
changing spirit, which had been due in part, 
at least, to the social and civic work in our 
community. Instead of getting up a peti- 
tion and a protest they had joined together 
in a group of sixty or seventy volunteers and 
done something constructive. And those who 
afterward, from a distance, saw the children 
at the hospital sunning themselves in baby 
carriages and hammocks on the lawn and saw 
their happy faces and their bright curls were 
satisfied that they had never put in a better 
day's work nor spent a dollar to better ad- 
vantage than upon the fitting up of the 
hospital. 

And finally there was no little encourage- 
ment in the fact that the folks who had been 



AN EPIDEMIC 197 

working hardest to drive the piper out of 
town and into the sea, if possible, were the 
same folks who were always to be found 
where help was needed or a good cause was 
crying for some one to lend a hand. No 
matter what the good cause — a fire depart- 
ment, a church, a neighborhood house, a 
workshop, a public school — the old familiar 
faces were there bearing not only their own 
burdens, but more than their share of the 
community's burdens as well. Some of them 
were elderly and some were young. Some 
were rich and some were poor. But who- 
ever or whatever they were, they were the 
salt of the earth; they were the followers of 
Him who bore in His own heart the burdens 
of the world. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE FEAR OF GOD 

Five years have passed since I took up 
the task of helping the progressive citi- 
zens to put the fear of the Lord in this little 
village, and since Gordon warned me con- 
cerning the fear of man. I am rather aston- 
ished now at my presumption then. I don't 
mind confessing to the reader in strict con- 
fidence that I feel a bit humble after the 
experience of these five years. I have come 
to understand that I am not the only person 
to whom the Almighty confides His wishes 
for the community. Nor am I the only tool 
He uses in getting His will done. Nor am I 
the only one whose spirit is willing. In fact, 
as I look back over these five years I am 
impressed with the very small proportion of 
the results accomplished which can be at- 
tributed by any hook or crook to me. 



THE FEAR OF GOD 199 

These sage reflections are due to a meet- 
ing held at our Neighborhood House the 
other evening. It was a get-together meet- 
ing of our Neighborhood Association for the 
purpose of taking stock of what had been 
accomplished by the committees of the Asso- 
ciation during the last few years. 

About two hundred citizens were at the 
get-together. It can hardly be said that they 
represented all classes and creeds, for Deacon 
Bostick was not there, nor the saloon keepers, 
nor the reactionaries who were " agin " prog- 
ress and took their pride in the deadness of 
the village. But the forward-looking citizens 
were there, some in flannel shirts and some in 
evening dress. And what they had accom- 
plished for the common good was amazing. 
Mr. Townsend opened the meeting and called 
upon the various committees to give an ac- 
count of themselves and show why they 
should be allowed to live. 

Mr. Grant, the Treasurer, reported all 
debts paid and money in the bank. That 
made every one feel good. 



200 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

Mr. Boisen, for the Finance Committee, 
gave some clew to the cause of the Treas- 
urer's happiness. It should first be explained 
that the Association's income, with the ex- 
ception of that from the Neighborhood 
House, came largely through various classes 
of annual dues which were as follows: $1.00, 
$5.00, $10.00, $25.00, $50.00, $100.00, and 
$200.00. All classes had the same privileges 
and every member joined the class that he 
could best afford or which seemed to best 
indicate his degree of interest. As there 
were about two hundred and fifty members 
of the Association by this time, the an- 
nual income from dues had reached about 
$3,800.00. But the work had grown faster 
than the income, so that during the past 
year it had become necessary to raise more 
money. Thereupon Mr. Boisen and his 
committee had canvassed the neighborhood, 
persuading citizens who belonged to the 
Association's class of $1.00 members to join 
the $5.00 class; the $5.00 members to join 
the $10.00 class, etc., etc. Some squirmed, 



THE FEAR OF GOD 201 

others felt " that they should first speak with 
their wives," but the majority came up 
cheerfully to the class next higher. As a 
result the income from annual dues was more 
than doubled. 

But how could a busy man like Mr. Boisen 
give the time to such a canvass? It was just 
because he was a busy man that he found the 
time to do it. If he had been an idler or a 
loafer, he never could have managed it. 
Deeper than this lay the fact that Mr. Boisen 
is a twentieth century citizen who appre- 
ciates the values and responsibilities of com- 
munity life and is willing and glad to give 
his time and personal effort, as well as his 
money, for the common good. If there were 
enough like him, the difficulties between capi- 
tal and labor would melt away. 

Next Mr. Stuart, a capable, modest, and 
altogether charming gentleman, reported that 
his committee had been looking after our 
roads, seeing to it that our needs were kept 
before the county officials and that we, in 
turn, cc-operated with them where our help 



FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

was needed. As a result sice of our roads 
had been macadamized. Mr. Stuart was 
sorry that the work had not proceeded more 
rapidly! 

Now came our Education Committee, 
which said that it had been trying to help 
the Public School Board in its effort to make 
our school of the greatest possible service to 
the children. A kindergarten, a sewing 
class, a cooking class, and a manual training 
class had been started by the committee and 
(with the exception of the manual training 
class) had been conducted for a year at the 
Association's expense and then, when the 
value of the class had been proven, turned 
over to the School Board and incorporated in 
its curriculum. 

The Mosquito Committee reported an ex- 
tensive annual campaign against both salt 
marsh and fresh water mosquitoes. Experts 
and a force of laborers had been employed. 
Every property had been inspected, marshes 
and swamps drained or oiled, and an educa- 
tional campaign conducted — this each year 



THE FEAR OF GOD 

for the last eight years. As a result, malaria, 
at one time a curse to the neighborhood, had 
become rare. Seventy-five cases in a single 
summer had not been unusual. Last summer 
only three cases were reported. This work 
had so proven its merit that the county had 
taken it over and would carry it on over 
the whole of its territory hereafter, paying 
for it out of tax funds. In the course of the 
committee's report, there was one item of a 
swamp turned into a lake of one hundred 
acres, the banks made steep and the water 
raised or lowered at various times during 
the year (by means of a dam) to prevent 
mosquito breeding. 

Mr. Dan Cushman, the contractor, next 
reported that his Winter Sports Committee 
had been making good use of this lake as a 
community skating pond during the winter. 
An annual ice carnival had been held here 
during the past few years. There had been 
skating races, ice boat races, obstacle races, 
etc. Each carnival had attracted a crowd of 
from three to four thousand persons. In 



204 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

addition to these carnivals, his committee had 
been holding an annual bob sled race, chal- 
lenging the big bob sleds of the other villages. 
The cups which he had won were on the 
shelf in the social room at the Neighborhood 
House. 

The village nurse, an efficient worker with 
a splendid spirit, told us a story of an inval- 
uable service (although she, of course, did not 
so describe it) in looking after the health of 
the community, and especially of the chil- 
dren of the public school — discovering little 
or incipient ailments and giving them an 
ounce of prevention and saving a pound of 
cure. Heaven only knows how many epi- 
demics she has forestalled and how many 
lives she has saved. 

Mr. Fiske, the lawyer, reported for the 
Law and Order Committee that we had been 
a pretty well behaved town, but it had been 
necessary, during the past year, to clean out 
a gambling den which had started in a pool 
room. The gamblers had been brought to 
justice, fined $500.00 and had since left the 



THE FEAR OF GOD 

village. His committee had also been called 
upon to offer gratuitous legal advice on tech- 
nical aspects of the work of various other 
committees. 

The General Improvement Committee had 
been busying itself planting Norway Maples 
along two of the highways. It had put in 
about three hundred trees. By planting 
them in quantity, it had been able to secure 
a certain degree of uniformity and a much 
lower price to the property owners. It 
had also secured a public dump and 
waged campaigns against caterpillars and 
flies. 

Mrs. Freeman, with the assistance of Mrs. 
Edwards, had been conducting a dancing 
class every Friday evening at the Neighbor- 
hood House through the winter and spring 
of each year. It had furnished not only in- 
struction, but good recreation to forty or fifty 
young people every week. 

Mr. Gordon, the school principal, who had 
charge of the work of conducting school 
gardens in the homes of the children, an- 



206 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

nounced that about seventy gardens had 
entered a contest each year for prizes offered 
by the Association and that, as a result, 
gardening was increasing in quality as well 
as quantity, and the village was raising more 
of its own food and depending less upon 
Italian fruit wagons. 

The Bathing Beach Committee reminded 
the neighborhood that the $10,000 bathing 
pavilion, which they enjoyed every summer, 
had not " just growed." For five years be- 
fore that pavilion had been built a bathing 
cottage had been conducted on the same site 
by our Association, and it was the experience 
of this cottage which the committee had made 
the basis of the appeal to the township, which 
after one unsuccessful effort, had resulted in 
the municipal pavilion. 

Then came Mrs. Townsend and her report 
for the Village Library. The report was 
modest enough, but the plain, unvarnished 
figures spoke for themselves: three thousand 
five hundred volumes on its shelves, a sub- 
station in every room of the public school, 



THE FEAR OF GOD 207 

and a monthly circulation of over six hundred 
— this in a village of twelve hundred popu- 
lation. " Your record," wrote the State 
Librarian, " is second to none in this 
state." 

Sandwiched in between these reports were 
those of the other work of which I have 
already written — the Neighborhood House, 
the Motion Picture Show, the Community 
Workshop, the Fire Department, Boy 
Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, Hospital, etc., etc. 

When the last report was finished and the 
meeting adjourned, the two hundred citizens 
filed out of the building with a new pride 
in their community and a deeper respect for 
their fellow men. Perhaps these are symp- 
toms of the fear of the Lord. 

No, we have not become a spotless town, 
nor a community of saints, nor have we all 
learned to pull together. The old obstacles 
are still with us. But we have learned that 
a few red blooded men and women, by work- 
ing together, can make life worth living in a 
small village. They can give it wholesome 



208 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 
recreations, productive employment, a clean 
bill of health, good roads, a certain amount 
of physical beauty, and a whole souled, prac- 
tical religion. 



CHAPTER XIV 
WAR 

If I were writing fiction instead of fact, I 
could, perhaps, tie up the loose ends of this 
story and have all the neighbors, even the 
villains, meet in this last chapter and sing 
the doxology. But just now the neighbors 
are too busy to do it. Deacon Bostick is 
leading a rather feeble attempt to reopen 
the Methodist Church, where he may hear 
the old fashioned gospel preached and where 
he may once again hold office and pass the 
collection plate. Neighbor Freeman is over 
in his barn with the craftsmen, making fur- 
niture and figuring out profits on common 
stock. They have made up their loss and 
have an encouraging balance on the right side 
of the ledger. Gordon is in the school build- 
ing teaching the young idea how to shoot, and 
in his spare minutes counting caterpillar egg 

209 



210 FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

masses that the children have been bringing 
by the hundreds into his office in a contest 
to see which can secure the most. 

The other neighbors (over thirty years of 
age) are about their daily business, only 
working a little harder than usual and trying 
to eliminate waste and stop all leaks. For 
the war is upon us. Our saloon keepers are 
not fighting Germany, but they are fighting 
each other, which, perhaps, will do us as 
much good. A new state law has reduced 
their number from six to three, and the 
question they are fighting about is, which 
three shall survive? If only the three that 
lose would burn up the other three! 

Our Neighborhood House is turned into a 
small armory, where in day times our Red 
Cross Branch is working, making bandages, 
dressings, and thinking up new stunts to raise 
money. Three evenings a week our Home 
Defense League is drilling here and throwing 
epileptic fits when they hear the command, 
"Squads right about, march!" Best of all, 
there is hardly a neighbor who is not doing 



vWAR 211 

something to help plant these idle acres — even 
though it does make us perspire some. 

The church, too, is doing its bit. Each 
year it has been mapping out its program of 
community service, drawing diagrams of it 
so that even the old saints and the tired busi- 
ness men can understand it. It has been 
fighting the forces of evil that prey upon the 
lives of men, waste their energies, and destroy 
their finer sensibilities. It has been develop- 
ing the characters of children and young 
people in a graded Sunday School and 
working in a score of practical ways to build 
up in the community a spirit of friendship 
and human kindness and to establish high 
ideals for individual and social righteousness. 
That is patriotic service of the highest order, 
whether it be peace or war time. Just now 
it is keeping constantly before the people the 
spiritual aspects of this war, trying to keep 
our purposes in it unselfish and the springs 
of passion free from the poison of hate. 

And the young men under thirty — the very 
young men who helped build this Neighbor- 



21£ FEAR GOD IN YOUR OWN VILLAGE 

hood House, who made up our classes and 
clubs, fire department, and movie audiences 
— are marching away. Their backs are 
straight and their heads are high. We are 
mighty proud that they want to go, and 
when the war is over and the world is again 
a safe place for free nations and honest men 
and virtuous women, we know that we shall 
be prouder yet of the part our boys have 
taken. 

THE END 



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